In response to a young woman’s assertions that she is Madeleine McCann, Polish police are reportedly investigating the matter. Julia Wendell, also known as Julia Faustyna or Julia Wendlet, gained national attention last week after sharing videos on social media. She attempted to establish her identity as the mother of the missing three-year-old daughter who vanished in 2007 while on vacation in Portugal with her British family. Wendell claims to have McCann’s rare eye disease, which forms the basis of his “evidence” of physical resemblance.
When McCann vanished, a coloboma anomaly in her right eye served as an essential identifying feature. (A coloboma is an anatomy-related hole in the eye that frequently appears as a tear or hole.
A dimple and several moles and freckles are comparable, she added, drawing this comparison. Piotr Noga from the Provincial Police Headquarters in Wroclaw reportedly told Polish source Gazeta late last week that they had “ruled out” the connection, according to a translation confirmed by Global News.
Although they stated that their investigation was ongoing, they did not explain how they arrived at their conclusions. Wendell has admitted that she doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t remember much of her childhood. Millions of people subscribe to her video channels.
Wendell wrote on her Instagram account, @iammadeleinemccan: “I don’t remember a lot of my childhood, but my earliest memory is strong, and it’s about holidays in a hot place where there was a beach and white or incredibly light-colored buildings with apartments. In a statement released last week, Wendell’s family said they are “devastated” by the accusations and the attention they have received from international media. They wrote on the “Lost Years Ago” Facebook page, “It is obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie,” and noted that their daughter had previously gone to therapy with a psychiatrist and a doctor, but that it may have stopped recently.
We are devastated by the current situation because she rejects treatment and doesn’t take her medications on a regular basis. This week, Wendell stated that McCann’s parents, Kate and Gerry, had consented to a DNA test; however, a family spokeswoman declined to confirm the information. According to a representative of the Find Madeleine campaign, “Gerry and Kate will not issue any statements or give interviews unless contacted by The Metropolitan Police.” This is because a police investigation is still ongoing.
If Madeleine were still alive, she would be 19 years old. Although she is 21 years old, she worries that this is not her real age. Wendell’s statements have generated a lot of bitter online debate. Many people demand that the London Metropolitan Police look into her allegations, while others charge Wendell with being a malicious con artist. On May 3, 2007, while on vacation with her parents in Praia da Luz, Portugal, Madeleine, a 3-year-old girl, vanished from a hotel room.
When Madeleine disappeared, her parents were out with friends at a nearby tapas bar, leaving Madeleine and her two siblings sound asleep in their bedroom. A multi-state investigation into her disappearance and a media frenzy on a global scale were both sparked by it. The search for McCann and her kidnapper has involved police from Germany, England, and Portugal for more than ten years.
According to “new evidence,” McCann’s death was connected to Christian Brückner, a German citizen, this year, according to German investigators. Brückner was found guilty of rape, though no charges have been brought against him. He called Praia da Luz home from 1995 to 2007. In the same location as Madeleine’s 2005 disappearance, Brückner is currently serving a seven-year sentence for raping a 72-year-old woman. He has also been found guilty of drug-related offenses. Since Madeleine’s parents were named as suspects in the McCann case in 2007, there had never been a formal suspect named. They were exonerated of all allegations in 2008.
Although British authorities continue to look into Madeleine’s disappearance as a missing person investigation, German police declared in June 2020 that she is presumed dead.