The DNA take a look at outcomes are in for the Polish lady who captured worldwide consideration earlier this 12 months for claiming to be Madeleine McCann, a British lady who disappeared in 2007 whereas on a household trip in Portugal.
The exams revealed that Julia Wendell, 21, just isn’t the lacking lady. Wendell has close to 100 per cent Polish heritage, with no proof of British and even German ancestry, in response to spokeswoman Dr. Fia Johansson.
“We lastly know the fact,” Johansson wrote in an Instagram submit. “Though it’s not possible to inform for certain with out the mother or father’s DNA outcomes on both aspect, the take a look at outcomes communicate to the origins of Julia’s root.”
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Johansson added that she was shocked that McCann’s dad and mom, who’re nonetheless searching for their daughter, and Wendell’s personal dad and mom refused to take a DNA take a look at to “resolve this nagging query” for her.
Wendell started a social media marketing campaign in February to share “proof” that she was McCann, after changing into suspicious of her previous and id, claiming she didn’t have many reminiscences of her childhood. In a now-deleted Instagram web page, @iammadeleinemccan, Wendell shared side-by-side comparisons of herself and the lacking lady and garnered tens of hundreds of followers.
The response to Wendell’s claims on-line was intensely polarizing. Many known as for London’s Metropolitan Police to research her claims, whereas others accused Wendell of being a malicious fraudster.
“This story is way more sophisticated than a easy lady from a small city in Poland making a declare to get consideration. She really believed what she was saying, and with so many questions on her childhood, it’s straightforward to grasp the place she was coming [from],” Johansson wrote in her assertion, including that Wendell “broke down in tears” when she realized the DNA take a look at outcomes.
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The crux of Wendell’s “proof” that she was McCann revolved round her bodily resemblance to the lacking lady. When McCann disappeared, a coloboma abnormality in her proper eye was used as a serious figuring out function, one which Wendell claimed to share. (A coloboma is a flaw within the construction of the attention, typically inflicting a visual tear or gap.)
Wendell additionally claimed to have the identical dimples as McCann, a number of equally situated moles and freckles, and even stated she had related enamel gapping. If alive, McCann could be 19 years previous. Wendell is 21, however stated on the time that she feared her age was incorrect.
Polish police disputed Wendell’s claims that she was McCann a couple of week after she reached viral fame and Wendell’s personal dad and mom spoke out about her marketing campaign, saying they had been “devastated” by her claims and the worldwide media consideration it garnered.
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“It’s apparent that Julia isn’t Maddie,” they wrote in a press release on the “Lacking Years In the past” Fb web page, including that their daughter has obtained remedy from psychologists and psychiatrists up to now, however suggesting that will have stopped lately.
“She refuses therapy, doesn’t take medicines recurrently … we’re devastated on the present scenario.”
Johansson wrote in her replace that Wendell was reconnecting together with her father within the wake of the DNA take a look at outcomes.
Kate and Gerry McCann maintain an age-progressed police picture of their daughter throughout a information convention to mark the fifth anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, on Could 2, 2012, in London, England.
Picture by Dan Kitwood/Getty Pictures
On Could 3, 2007, three-year-old Madeleine McCann went lacking from a resort room in Praia da Luz, Portugal, whereas on trip together with her dad and mom. Her dad and mom had been eating with buddies at a close-by tapas bar, leaving McCann and her two siblings asleep of their bed room on the night she disappeared.
Her disappearance launched a cross-country investigation and resulted in a global media frenzy.
For greater than a decade, Portuguese, English and German police forces have collaborated in an try to find McCann and her kidnapper.
Final 12 months, German authorities stated “new proof” linked German native Christian Brückner to McCann’s homicide. Brückner is a convicted rapist, however he has but to be charged on this case. He lived within the Praia da Luz space from 1995 to 2007.
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Brückner is serving a seven-year jail sentence for raping a 72-year-old lady in 2005 in the identical space the place McCann went lacking. He has additionally been convicted of drug expenses.
It was the first time a proper suspect had been named within the McCann case since her dad and mom had been declared such in 2007. They had been later cleared of suspicion in 2008.
In June 2020, German police stated that McCann is assumed lifeless however British authorities proceed to deal with her disappearance as a lacking individual case.
— With information from International Information’ Sarah Do Couto and Michelle Butterfield
© 2023 International Information, a division of Corus Leisure Inc.
