Where Is Madeleine McCann's Suspected Killer Now? What to Know About Christian Brueckner's Life as He Serves Time for a Different Crime

On May 3, 2007, Madeleine McCann vanished from a vacation apartment in Portugal while her parents dined at a restaurant just 130 feet away. She was never seen again.

The case sparked a media frenzy that initially painted Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, as suspects after forensic tests found traces of their daughter’s blood in a car they rented 25 days after she went missing. They maintained their innocence and were officially cleared in 2008.

In 2020, German prosecutors named Christian Brueckner as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance. Two years later, Portuguese prosecutors confirmed to the Associated Press that they had identified an official suspect in the case, but did not reveal a name.

Brueckner, who was convicted in 2019 for raping a 72-year-old woman, has denied any involvement with the missing toddler.

“My private opinion is that he relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her and then killed her,” said German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters in a 2020 interview with The Times.

 So, where is Christian Brueckner now? Here’s everything to know about what happened to the suspect in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

What happened to Madeleine McCann? 

In 2007, Kate, Gerry and their three children — Madeleine and her 2-year-old twin siblings — went on holiday to Portugal. The family was visiting from the United Kingdom, where they resided, and rented a vacation apartment in the resort town of Praia da Luz.

On May 3, the parents put their kids to bed and had dinner with friends at a restaurant less than 200 feet away. They left the apartment unlocked so they could periodically check on the kids.

During one of those check-ins, Kate noticed an open window and found that Madeleine was missing from her bed. The toddler, who was just a few days shy of her 4th birthday, was never seen again. 

Who is Christian Brueckner? 

Brueckner — whose real name is Christian Fischer, according to The Times — was born in 1976 and adopted as a baby, but his adoptive parents allegedly sent him away. He was later taken in by Brigitte Brückner and Fritz Brückner in Würzburg, Germany, where he grew up.

In 1993, he started committing sexual offenses against children and was caught molesting a 6-year-old girl on a playground. Brueckner was extradited from Portugal to Germany in 2017, where he spent 15 months in jail for sexually abusing a child and was sentenced to seven years in prision in 2019 for raping a 72-year-old woman in 2005.

In February 2024, he went to trial in Germany for three counts of rape and two counts of sexual abuse of a child that he allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. His alleged victims include an elderly woman, a 14-year-old girl and a 20-year-old Irish woman, all of whom he tied up, whipped and sexually assaulted, per AP.

He was also accused of exposing himself to a 10-year-old and an 11-year-old girl in separate cases that occurred during that time period.

Brueckner was named a suspect while he was appealing his sentence for the 2005 rape, though authorities haven’t confirmed how they linked him to Madeleine’s disappearance. He was also serving a 21-month sentence for dealing drugs.

A German investigator testified in June 2024 that they had allegedly discovered two email accounts of Brueckner’s that he used to share evidence of child abuse. One of those accounts allegedly contained information that “related to the killing” of the toddler, The Times reported.

Has Christian Brueckner been charged in Madeleine McCann’s disappearance? 

No, Brueckner has not been charged in relation to Madeleine’s disappearance. In 2020, Wolters told Sky News that there wasn’t enough “hard evidence” to take him to trial and that finding the toddler’s body was crucial.

“All indication we have got that I can’t tell you points in the direction that Madeleine is dead,” he told Sky News. “We’ve got things we cannot communicate that speak for the theory that Madeleine is dead, even if I have to admit that we don’t have the body.”

However, his investigation did allegedly find “some evidence” that points to Brueckner, including that he lived in the area where Madeleine went missing from 1995 to 2007.

Has Madeleine McCann been found?

No, Madeleine has never been found. Despite thousands of alleged sightings over the years, Wolters told Sky News in 2020 that the toddler is presumed dead. Her parents, however, haven’t given up hope.

“We welcome the news that the Portuguese authorities have declared a German man an ‘arguido’ [suspect] in relation to the disappearance of our beloved daughter Madeleine,” they wrote on the website Find Madeleine in 2023, BBC reported.

Kate and Gerry continued, “Even though the possibility may be slim, we have not given up hope that Madeleine is still alive and we will be reunited with her.”

Where is Christian Brueckner now?

In October 2024, a German court acquitted Brueckner of two counts of rape and two of sexual abuse that he had been accused of committing in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. His lawyers cited a lack of evidence and claimed that their client might not have been charged if he hadn’t been named as a suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance, per AP.

Prosecutors said they would appeal the ruling, and the German native will remain in prison until September 2025 to finish out his seven-year sentence for raping a woman in 2005.

Wolters told Sky News in January 2025 that there was “no prospect of an indictment” in Madeleine’s case.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.