Jon Clarke (Publisher & Editor)
By Jon Clarke in Praia da Luz
A FORMER detective who helped look for missing Madeleine McCann in 2007 insists the search this week was ‘very positive’.
Looking at body language and the targeted location of the search, Danie Krugel believes German police have found ‘important key evidence’.
The South African private detective, who worked with the McCann family in the summer of 2007, had been given DNA traces from their daughter’s hair brush.
He used it in a device he has now patented in 27 countries and connected to dozens of successful searches.
Now, after a search team of over 60 cops, wrapped up after just three days of searching, clapping themselves and celebrating openly with beers, he is sure they’ve been successful.
“I’m so happy they’ve finally been searching in the right place and looking at their body language I’m quite convinced they found something they were looking for,” he told the Olive Press.
“They only looked in three specific areas with 30 people brought in from Germany and it seemed they stopped suddenly early and definitely looked happy.
“It is a place I know Maddie was at, whether dead or alive, thanks to my device, and I am sure we are reaching the end game.”
While neither Portuguese or German police have issued any statement, local media has claimed they found clothing and animal bones.
This came while searching at just three or four ruins, close to the Ocean Club resort, in Praia da Luz, where Maddie went missing on May 3, 2007.
Given they had registered to search over 21 separate plots and initially pinpointed three large and completely separate areas, it bodes well.
However, as an Olive Press source confirmed today, nothing will be announced for weeks, with ‘numerous bags of material’ sent back to Germany for careful analysis.
It was the same process after searches at nearby Arade lake in 2022, when soil samples and materials were sent back to the labs at the BKA headquarters in Wiesbaden to attempt to extract a DNA match to Maddie.
Former detective Krugel, who has won awards for his search device that works on quantum physics, had been drafted in by Gerry McCann back in June 2007.
Flying in from South Africa he set up a series of tests using hairs from Maddie.
“Over four days and four nights, on eight separate readings I pointed to the area where detectives have been searching close to Praia da Luz,” he explained.
The area – which included the home of former prime suspect Christian Brueckner as well as the villa of infamous paedophile Clement Freud – has never been properly searched.
“They are in the right area. That’s what I’ve said since the beginning, which was in 2007, that the signal was static, wherever she was, she was not moving.
“I used that as a centre point and what I explained to the police is to use a centre point and then you make the 360 turn bigger and bigger.
“We know this from decomposition, but also from body parts that animals carry around. DNA spreads with wind and rain and can also be carried by mice and birds.”
Krugel, who has worked with leading universities around the world and numerous police forces, handed back the hair brush to the McCanns a few years ago.
“I’m so excited the Germans are at the right spot. I’m very at ease that things will now go to an end. This is all I was waiting for. Justice for Madeleine. That’s all I want,” he concluded.
It comes as Portuguese media claimed that Madeleine might have been the victim of a German drunk driver, whose British husband helped her bury her body at sea.
Describing the mystery couple as ‘alcoholics’, Correio da Manha said the German woman was drinking at a bar near the Ocean Club the night Maddie went missing.
The couple’s neighbour allegedly told police she had heard them arguing the day after the three-year-old disappeared.
The man allegedly kept asking her: “Why did you bring her here?” the following day.
According to the newspaper, Portuguese police tried to convince German police to probe the couple further, but it was turned down.
