German investigators looking into the 2007 disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann have found a hidden cellar at an allotment where her suspected kidnapper allegedly lived during the year the toddler vanished.
Police discovered the cellar in the foundations of a building near the city of Hannover that had been demolished in 2007 or 2008, according to the Daily Mail.
Wolfgang Kossack, 73, was once a neighbour of Christian Bueckner, McCann’s alleged kidnapper. Kossack claims Brueckner lived on the Hannover plot of land in 2007. He said the plot included a vegetable garden, and said Brueckner had failed to register with local authorities. The suspect always talked about a planned return to southern Europe, he said.
That same year, three-year-old McCann went missing as she vacationed with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal, where Brueckner was also known to stay. Brueckner split his time between Germany and Portugal from 2013 to 2015. At the end of 2012, he opened a small business with his then-girlfriend. They later broke up but he continued running the business. Brueckner was later convicted of the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old woman in the Praia da Luz area.
In Germany, police brought specialist search dogs who combed the area in Hannover, searching for bodies and specialized computer equipment. A former friend of Brueckner’s tipped police off about the site last month, the Daily Mail reported , saying that Brueckner told him of a cellar where he wanted to line the walls with metal sheets.
Kossack told the Daily Mail: “I remembered his face from the pictures in the news. And I remember his van and his dogs. I had completely forgotten about him up until then.” Kossack said no one knew the suspected kidnapper was living on the land during the time of McCann’s disappearance.
“He never did any gardening. He did not plant anything or try to grow anything. He just sat around drinking beer,” Kossack said. “At the time there was a building on the garden. It was a small wooden structure with only one room to keep tools and other things but it had a kitchen … It had a cellar and underneath there would be foundations. This building was destroyed in 2008.”
After that point, Kossack said he never saw Brueckner again.
Kossack recalled Brueckner talking about moving to the south of Europe for its better weather, but said he had never specified which country he would like to visit. Kossack said he once inquired what the suspected kidnapper did for a living.
“He said he was a car mechanic. I asked him why he didn’t repair his own van because it was always leaking diesel onto the ground. He said he would get around to it sometime.”
As police search the land, an apartment block in Hannover suspected to be Brueckner’s last known address in the city is also being investigated.
When pressed by reporters about recent developments, Friedrich Fuelscher, the suspect’s lawyer, said, “I think we’ll find out the reason soon,” for the police activity in the area.
Right now, Brueckner is in prison on drug convictions. He had requested early release because, on June 7, he had served two-thirds of his sentence. There had been fears that if released early, Brueckner would take the opportunity to flee before investigators could resolve the disappearance of McCann. Brueckner dropped the release bid, but is appealing his 2005 rape conviction of a 72-year-old woman at the same resort where McCann disappeared from in Portugal. His drug conviction sentence is slated to end just before January, but his seven-year rape sentence will continue, unless he is successful in his appeal.
In June this year, officials appealed to the public for any tips on Brueckner, who they tapped as the lead suspect in McCann’s disappearance after a trove of new evidence, including his car details and phone calls, came to light.
The German has been linked to at least two other missing children cases.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
