German Police Reportedly Pursue Connection Between Madeleine McCann Case and Another

Parents of missing girl Madeleine McCann, Kate (L) and Gerry McCann (R) pose with an artist's impression of how their daughter might look now at the age of nine ahead of a press conference in central London on May 2, 2012. (Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images)

German police investigating the 2007 disappearance of British child Madeleine McCann have now launched an investigation into a potential connection between her disappearance and that of another child who went missing five years ago in Germany, according to German media.

On Friday, German news outlet Der Spiegel reported that police in September 2019 had launched an investigation into the disappearance of a 5-year-old girl named Inga who went missing in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt in May 2015.

According to the report, German police are investigating a potential connection between Inga’s disappearance and the newly identified suspect in the McCann case—a German national identified as “Christian B” by police.

Der Spiegel has reported that the suspect—who is currently being held in a prison in Kiel, northern Germany, for an unrelated crime—had previously “boasted” in an online chat that he wanted to abuse a girl and that “they would never find the child again.”

The suspect is also reported to have said in an online chat in 2013 that he wanted to “capture something small and use it for a few days.”

German media adds that police found records of the chat on a computer owned by the suspect, which they confiscated in early 2016; according to these reports, the files found on this computer are currently being investigated by police.

Madeleine, then 3 years old, disappeared from an apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on vacation with her family in 2007. She has never been found, and no one has ever been charged over her disappearance.

On Thursday, the spokesman for the State Prosecutor’s Office of Braunschweig, in the state of Lower-Saxony, told CNN his office assumes Madeleine is dead. Spokesman Hans Christian Wolters said they would not elaborate what evidence they have to support this as it is an ongoing investigation.

The CNN Wire contributed to this report.