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Madeleine McCann suspect linked to disappearance of missing German girl eight years later

Inga Gehricke, pictured on the day she went missing
Inga Gehricke, pictured on the day she went missing

It had been an otherwise unremarkable spring day.

A group of friends, with several small children between them, were making the most of the last rays of sunshine, enjoying a few drinks and planning to start a barbeque.

But then, someone noticed that one of their number, a young blonde girl, had vanished. The alarm was raised, a frantic search began and the emergency services were called.

In that sickening instant, the lives of one family changed forever.

The case of Inga Gehricke, who was five when she mysteriously disappeared without trace on May 2, 2015, has startling parallels with that of Madeleine McCann.

Neither girl has ever been found and no suspects have been charged despite lengthy and dogged police investigations.

Both cases entranced a nation, no one quite able to believe that a little girl could be spirited away so successfully, without a shred of evidence left behind.

The two crimes, which occurred almost exactly eight years apart, have often been linked by the media, with Inga regularly referred to as “Germany’s Madeleine McCann”.

But on Friday, it emerged that the links between the two cases might be more devastating than anyone had dared imagine as German prosecutors revealed that they were investigating whether Christian Bruckner, the prime suspect in the Madeleine case, was also responsible for Inga’s disappearance.

Christian Bruckner
Christian Bruckner

In a new development on Friday night, the family of a German boy who went missing in the Algarve in June 1996 told a newspaper in Cologne they were contacted by detectives concerning their son's disappearance. Police in Germany and the UK are yet to comment.

Birte Iliev, spokesman for the Public Prosecutor's Office in the district of Stendal, where Inga vanished, said they were examining whether there was “any new evidence” to link Bruckner with Inga's case.

Certainly, just as in the Madeleine case, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence that places Bruckner dangerously close to the scene.

At the time, he is understood to have been living at a property in Neuwegersleben, barely 50 miles from the forest in Wilhelmshof, where the Gehricke family had spent that fateful day.

Just one day earlier, Bruckner was involved in a minor accident at a motorway service area near Helmstedt, just a 90-minute drive from the scene, according to local newspaper Volksstimme.

The Gehrickes, from Schonebeck in Saxony-Anhalt, had been making the most of a typical early spring weekend, socialising with two other families, when they realised Inga had disappeared.

It was around 6.30pm and both her parents and the police initially believed the little girl had run into the forest to collect wood for a campfire.

It later transpired that Inga, who was wearing a butterfly t-shirt and blue jeans with her hair tied back in two plaits, was last seen in an area near a sports field, where she had brought a drink and played on a tin horse.

Either way, a frantic search got underway before someone called the police around an hour later.

Detectives were on the scene that evening and the search soon expanded to include more than 1,000 officers.

Inga Gehricke disappearance map
Inga Gehricke disappearance map

Police and volunteers scoured the 3,500 hectare forest repeatedly for four days using dogs, helicopters with thermal imaging cameras, searchlights and loud speakers. Ponds were emptied and larger bodies of water were searched on boats with sonar equipment. But not a trace of evidence was found.

“We have not the slightest hint on the whereabouts of the child,” a police spokesman was quoted as saying. “The girl just disappeared.”

Five days later, on May 7, police admitted for the first time that a crime was likely to have been committed and on June 2, €25,000 reward was offered for information. A second two-day search proved similarly fruitless.

Some 150 employees, guests and visitors to Diakoniewerk Wilhelmshof, an apartment complex run by the protestant church, were questioned.

Criminologists have since insisted that if Inga had simply run into the forest and got lost she would have been found, as police were on the scene almost immediately. Similarly, had she been attacked by a wild animal, remains would have been found. They believe her disappearance could only have been linked to a crime.

Bruckner, who had by this point notched up a string of criminal convictions, including several child sex offences, was one of many local criminals who were investigated.

At some stage, although it is unclear when, police working on the case discovered an online chat from two years earlier in which Bruckner is alleged to have told a friend he wanted to "capture something small and use it for days".

Asked if that was dangerous he replied: "Not if the evidence is destroyed afterwards,” German newspaper Spiegel reported.

In February 2016, more than 100 police officers descended on his home in the village of Neuwegersleben, some 40 miles east of Braunschweig.

Bruckner, then 39, was not there but detectives found children's clothing and child porn.

His apartment in Braunschweig was searched simultaneously, according to reports.

Madeleine McCann's disappearance: A timeline of the events
Madeleine McCann's disappearance: A timeline of the events

It is alleged that he had no alibi for the day Inga went missing but no further action was taken.

Much like the Madeleine case, German police have pursued some 2,000 leads since that fateful day, but the crime remains unsolved.

A four-week analysis of the evidence undertaken in recent months yielded no new results.

Inga's grief-stricken parents have since divorced but are united in their desire for a renewed investigation and believe the answers lie in the weighty police file.

Her father’s lawyer has said that “fresh investigators for fresh approaches” are important.

Petra Kullmei, representing Inga’s mother, said: “My client sees it exactly the same way. Nothing should be left unturned.

“Experienced investigators from another unit or the State Criminal Police Office would have a completely different perspective on the case.”

She told Volksstimme: “The file (on Bruckner) was closed again only four weeks after starting work. I don’t think that's very ambitious.”

Bruckner is said to have sent a letter from prison last year to an employee at the place Inga was staying when she disappeared, although its contents are unknown.

For now, two families must play the waiting game. They are united in both their unimaginable devastation over the loss of a young daughter and now too, by the suspicions swirling around one man; Christian Bruckner.