The convicted rapist who is the leading suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann allegedly made a disturbing statement about the toddler shortly after she vanished, CBS News reports.
Christian Brueckner, 45, is serving a life prison sentence for raping an elderly American woman in 2005 in Algarve, Portugal, near where the 3-year-old McCann went missing in 2007.
In 2008, Brueckner, a German national, was discussing the case with a then-friend and allegedly said that “she didn’t even scream,” according to CBS News.
The friend, identified only as “Helge B.,” allegedly told the German newspaper Bild that he was visiting Brueckner’s apartment when he came upon videos of Bruckner sexually assaulting women.
The recordings were horrifying.
In one of the videos, a masked whipped a woman who was likely 70 to 80 years old and was tied up on a bed. She wore covered goggles to prevent her from seeing and spoke English, at one point shouted, “You fucking ba****d!” according to Bild.
At the conclusion of the video, the man allegedly pulled down the mask to reveal himself as Brueckner.
“I could not believe it at all,” Helge allegedly told Bild.
Helge and Brueckner did not meet again until a 2008 music festival in Spain. It was during this festival that Brueckner allegedly asked Helge if he still visited Portugal on business, and Helge commented that police had stepped up checks on travelers in the wake of McCann’s disappearance.
“I don’t understand anyway how the little girl could disappear without a trace,” Helge allegedly told Brueckner, according to CBS News.
This is when Brueckner is said to have made the chilling statement about McCann not screaming.
Brueckner left abruptly the following day, which Helge attributes to Brueckner sensing his suspicions.
Helge says he no longer considers Brueckner a friend and reported the unsettling statement to police multiple times. He never received a response until 2018, when German authorities reached out to him.
Helge offered a theory that Brueckner may have intended only to break into McCann’s Portugal holiday apartment and decided to kidnap the girl only when he came upon her. Brueckner had previously worked at the resort.
“That probably wasn’t planned at all,” Helge told Bild. “Whether he ended up killing her, I don’t know.”
Brueckner has denied accusations that he had anything to do with McCann’s disappearance.
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[Feature Photo: Handout]
