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

Targeted Behavior Towards McCann Family

Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, is accused of a campaign of harassment against the parents of Madeleine, who disappeared from a Portuguese resort in Portugal in 2007 when she was three.

The woman from Poland flooded Kate and Gerry McCann and their grown-up kids, Sean and Amelie, with numerous phone calls, messages, voicemails and letters from 2022 until recently, and visited their home insisting on a DNA test, the court was earlier informed.

Investigation Details

Giving evidence on Tuesday, the chief investigator on Operation Grange, stated he had deviated from protocol to test Wandelt “with the aim she may stop her behavior towards the McCann family”.

The senior officer said over a dozen persons had in the past insisted to be Madeleine McCann 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 quite likely not to be Madeleine, I was concerned I would have had numerous individuals coming forward saying ‘I’m Madeleine’.

“I truly possess major concerns about approaching the family to say I intend to take DNA from an individual – that could have raised their hopes. It could have been highly distressing and difficult for the family.”

Genetic Testing

He said investigators had previously assessed Wandelt not to be Madeleine due to a lack of resemblance and that she was older by two years than the missing girl. But, he said, after finding out Leicester police intended to detain Wandelt on criminal accusations, he “decided that the DNA would be taken when she was apprehended”.

He declared: “A comparison took place. It definitively established that Julia Wandelt is definitely not Madeleine McCann.”

Court Proceedings

The court heard that in April this year, the officer met with Wandelt in custody and stated to her that her DNA had been tested alongside Madeleine’s and that the samples did not match. The jury heard he told Wandelt at that meeting: “You are not Madeleine McCann.”

The court heard that during their conversation, Wandelt inquired: “Do you truly desire to find Madeleine?”, and the detective 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 was a possibility she would not believe she cannot be Madeleine even when provided with scientific proof.”

Psychological Toll

Earlier in the trial, jurors learned how the McCanns were left terrified and distressed by their “disturbing” and “profoundly unsettling” interactions with Wandelt and her alleged accomplice Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff, as the pair attempted to insist on a DNA test.

Jurors heard how the defendants made ever more strange plans” to collect Kate McCann’s DNA, which included searching the McCanns’ bins and removing cutlery from restaurants that they had eaten in.

The accused women both contest one count of stalking. The case remains active.