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A suspected stalker who claimed to be the abducted child was eliminated after a secret DNA test proved conclusively she was not the missing girl, authorities disclosed in court.

Harassment Campaign Towards McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, 24, is alleged to have conducted a stalking campaign against the family of Madeleine, who went missing from Praia da Luz in Portugal in 2007 when she was three.

The Polish citizen flooded Kate and Gerry McCann and their older offspring, Sean and Amelie, with hundreds of calls, messages, voicemails and letters between 2022 and earlier this year, and turned up at their home insisting on a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Investigation Details

Giving evidence on Tuesday, the chief investigator on Madeleine's disappearance, said he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “in the hope she may stop her conduct towards the McCann family”.

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

“If it became known in the media I had taken DNA from a person probably not to be Madeleine, I was concerned I would have had many persons coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I sincerely hold major concerns about contacting the family to say I plan to take DNA from an individual – that could have built up their expectations. It could have been very traumatic and challenging for the family.”

Genetic Testing

He said the police had already judged Wandelt not to be Madeleine on account of dissimilar appearance and that she was two years older than the missing girl. But, he said, after learning Leicester police were going to take into custody Wandelt on harassment allegations, he “decided that the DNA would be taken during detention”.

He stated: “Testing was conducted. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt is definitely not Madeleine McCann.”

Jury Hearings

Jurors learned that in April this year, the officer visited Wandelt while detained and stated to her that her DNA had been compared to Madeleine’s and that the genetic markers did not match. The jury heard he told Wandelt at that meeting: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

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

He said even with the results, he believed Wandelt “would suggest we have tampered with the sample”, adding: “There existed a chance she would never accept she is not Madeleine notwithstanding scientific proof.”

Emotional Distress

Earlier in the trial, testimony revealed how the relatives were left scared and upset by their “creepy” and “profoundly unsettling” interactions with Wandelt and her alleged accomplice Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as both defendants attempted to demand a DNA test.

The court learned how the defendants made “increasingly bizarre plans” to collect Kate McCann’s DNA, which included going through the McCanns’ bins and removing cutlery from restaurants that the McCanns dined at.

Wandelt and Spragg both contest one count of stalking. The trial continues.