The DNA results are in: Woman who said she was Madeleine McCann not missing girl – National | 24CA News
The DNA check outcomes are in for the Polish lady who captured worldwide consideration earlier this 12 months for claiming to be Madeleine McCann, a British lady who disappeared in 2007 whereas on a household trip in Portugal.
The exams revealed that Julia Wendell, 21, is just not the lacking lady. Wendell has close to 100 per cent Polish heritage, with no proof of British and even German ancestry, based on spokeswoman Dr. Fia Johansson.
“We finally know the reality,” Johansson wrote in an Instagram submit. “Although it is impossible to tell for sure without the parent’s DNA results on either side, the test results speak to the origins of Julia’s root.”
Johansson added that she was shocked that McCann’s dad and mom, who’re nonetheless on the lookout for their daughter, and Wendell’s personal dad and mom refused to take a DNA check to “resolve this nagging question” for her.
Wendell started a social media marketing campaign in February to share “evidence” that she was McCann, after changing into suspicious of her previous and identification, claiming she didn’t have many recollections of her childhood. In a now-deleted Instagram web page, @iammadeleinemccan, Wendell shared side-by-side comparisons of herself and the lacking lady and garnered tens of 1000’s of followers.
The response to Wendell’s claims on-line was intensely polarizing. Many referred to as for London’s Metropolitan Police to analyze her claims, whereas others accused Wendell of being a malicious fraudster.
“This story is much more complicated than a simple girl from a small town in Poland making a claim to get attention. She truly believed what she was saying, and with so many questions about her childhood, it is easy to understand where she was coming [from],” Johansson wrote in her assertion, including that Wendell “broke down in tears” when she discovered the DNA check outcomes.
The crux of Wendell’s “proof” that she was McCann revolved round her bodily resemblance to the lacking lady. When McCann disappeared, a coloboma abnormality in her proper eye was used as a significant figuring out characteristic, one which Wendell claimed to share. (A coloboma is a flaw within the construction of the attention, usually inflicting a visual tear or gap.)
Wendell additionally claimed to have the identical dimples as McCann, a number of equally positioned moles and freckles, and even mentioned she had related enamel gapping. If alive, McCann could be 19 years previous. Wendell is 21, however mentioned on the time that she feared her age was incorrect.
Polish police disputed Wendell’s claims that she was McCann a couple of week after she reached viral fame and Wendell’s personal dad and mom spoke out about her marketing campaign, saying they had been “devastated” by her claims and the worldwide media consideration it garnered.
“It is obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie,” they wrote in an announcement on the “Missing Years Ago” Facebook web page, including that their daughter has obtained remedy from psychologists and psychiatrists previously, however suggesting which will have stopped lately.
“She refuses treatment, doesn’t take medicines regularly … we are devastated at the current situation.”
Johansson wrote in her replace that Wendell was reconnecting together with her father within the wake of the DNA check outcomes.
Kate and Gerry McCann maintain an age-progressed police picture of their daughter throughout a news convention to mark the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, on May 2, 2012, in London, England.
Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
On May 3, 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann went lacking from a lodge room in Praia da Luz, Portugal, whereas on trip together with her dad and mom. Her dad and mom had been eating with buddies at a close-by tapas bar, leaving McCann and her two siblings asleep of their bed room on the night 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 find McCann and her kidnapper.
Last 12 months, German authorities mentioned “new evidence” related German native Christian Brückner to McCann’s homicide. Brückner is a convicted rapist, however he has but to be charged on this case. He lived within the Praia da Luz space from 1995 to 2007.
Brückner is serving a seven-year jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old lady in 2005 in the identical space the place McCann went lacking. He has additionally been convicted of drug costs.
It was the first time a proper suspect had been named within the McCann case since her dad and mom had been declared such in 2007. They had been later cleared of suspicion in 2008.
In June 2020, German police mentioned that McCann is assumed lifeless however British authorities proceed to deal with her disappearance as a lacking individual case.
— With information from Global News’ Sarah Do Couto and Michelle Butterfield
© 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
