Julia Wendell, who is claiming to be Madeleine McCann, appears on Dr Phil. Photo / Supplied
Polish woman Julia Wendell has appeared on the Dr Phil show to attempt to prove her claims that she is missing British girl Madeleine McCann.
Wendell, 21, made her television appearance ahead of the results of a much-publicised DNA test which she says will prove that her ancestry goes back to the UK and not her native Poland.
Wendell said she first suspected she was the missing British girl last year, after years of questioning her family history.
She told the host her mother would always change the subject when she asked about details of her early life.
Dr Phil pressed Wendell on why she had not sent her DNA for testing to Scotland Yard to compare it with the McCann family’s DNA.
Wendell claimed she had tried to contact the British police several times but failed.
Asked what she would do if DNA showed she was Polish, Wendell stuck to her story, saying: “I believe I am Madeleine McCann”.
“If she is my mother, I don’t want to have contact with her that’s all, but I believe she isn’t my mother,” she said.
Wendell told Dr Phil she was sexually abused by a man named Peter Ney, who was convicted of the crimes
“I believe that he can be related to Martin Ney, Martin Ney was suspected in Madeleine McCann case and Martin Ney is an international child trafficker, serial killer,” she said.
Wendell said she only had “one early memory”.
“Beach and water, like sea or ocean, and there were turtles and children … and I remembered light-coloured buildings, like white or very light colours, sunlight on these buildings,” she said.
The memories, which paint a picture of the region of Portugal where McCann went missing, was given as strong proof of the integrity of Wendell’s story by Dr Fia Johannsson, who has been representing the young woman on the global stage.
Johannsson said the fact that Wendell recounted the story the same way every time made her believe it was true.
“I see that very differently actually when I’m interrogating someone and they give me the exact story the same way every time,” Dr Phil responded.
“That suggests rehearsal, not recollection.”
Following the interview, Dr Phil invited a pair of experts onstage to discuss Wendell’s responses and they identified her “blink rate” as a giveaway.
They said an increase in blinking is a stress response and Wendell’s blinking increased whenever the DNA was brought up.
But they did say that they saw no evidence of deception, only doubt.
“It seemed to me that there are mental and emotional overlays that confound everything else,” Dr Phil said, adding that Wendell appeared depersonalised.
“I think that she may actually believe this at this point, she may have gotten lost in this belief system,” he said.
Wendell’s family have previously expressed their dismay at the media circus around their daughter and called for her to seek mental health treatment.
“For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin and step niece,” her parents said in a statement earlier this year.
“Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet. The interest won’t forget, and it’s obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie. We are devastated at this current situation.”
Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann are yet to make an official statement on the matter.
Over the years, numerous suspects have been identified and investigated but none have led to any significant breakthroughs.
So who were the suspects and how did they become involved in the mystery of Maddie’s disappearance?
Main suspect Christian Brueckner:
In 2020, about 13 years after Maddie disappeared, police identified Brueckner as the main suspect. He had been living in a campervan just kilometres away from the Ocean Club at the time she disappeared and has a history of sexually abusing children.
German police have claimed they have substantial evidence linking Brueckner to Maddie, including a confession he allegedly made to a friend while drinking at a bar.
He has repeatedly denied any involvement with her disappearance.
Prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters was interviewed on a show called Sabado in 2022, where he claimed investigators found fibres from Maddie’s pink pyjamas in Brueckner’s van.
“It’s not forensic evidence but evidence and because of our evidence, we are sure he is the murderer of Madeleine McCann. We are sure he killed Madeleine,” he said.
It surfaced that evidence had been found in the yellow and white VW driven by Brueckner at the time.
A phone call made by Brueckner just 60 minutes before Maddie disappeared placed him within kilometres of the Ocean Club complex. Wolters said the phone call connected to the mast belonging to the club.
Brueckner has since sent a letter from his prison cell saying he has no connection to the case.
“I wasn’t kidnapping anybody and, of course, I wasn’t killing anybody,” he wrote.
“I’ll go further, I’ll tell you I wasn’t attacking anybody after I was 18. I made some silly mistakes when I was younger but who hasn’t?”
Brueckner noted there was “no proof” against him and that German authorities were leaking information to portray him in a poor light.
“I know of about five open cases against me, all of them including raping and abusing. They have manipulated the truth in such an unprofessional way that I am laughing.
“I still have not lost my sense of humour. Even in this critical situation. This is what keeps me alive.”
Kate and Gerry McCann - Madeleine McCann’s body allegedly disposed of after accidental death:
Portuguese police and lead detective Goncalo Amaral - who was in charge of Maddie’s case at the time - named her parents, Kate and Gerry, as the prime suspects in September 2007, four months after Maddie disappeared.
Amaral believed Maddie died in the family’s rented holiday apartment and that her parents covered up her death and disposed of her body.
Sniffer dogs were brought in three weeks after she went missing and took a keen interest in the complex and rental car the McCanns had rented. This heightened Amaral’s theory.
Amaral was taken off Maddie’s case in October 2007 and retired from police work in general in 2008, but he still maintained her parents were involved. In 2008, he went as far as writing a book called The Truth of The Lie, alleging Maddie died in an accident on May 3, 2007, and that her parents hid her body.
The McCanns strongly maintained their innocence and successfully sued Amaral in 2015. He was ordered to pay the couple roughly NZ$850,000 in libel damages. He was also ordered to remove his book.
However, in 2017, the decision was overturned by Portuguese judges and the McCanns’ appeal through the European Court of Human Rights sided with Amaral.
In 2008, nearly 15 months after she disappeared, the Portuguese attorney-general ordered a halt to the investigation and cleared the child’s parents of any involvement in her disappearance.
Madeleine McCann taken by human traffickers:
In 2007, private detectives claimed they had uncovered evidence that human trafficking “spotters” could have been operating in Praia da Luz at the time of Maddie’s disappearance.
The theory claims that she may have been “hidden and handed over to a child trafficker two days after she went missing and taken to Morocco”.
In 90 minutes she could have been driven to the Spanish border or put on a boat in nearby Lagos marina and taken to Morocco before police even suspected she had been abducted.
It was an early theory explored by Portuguese investigators after a report that Maddie had been photographed on the beach by a stranger. It could have been part of a selection process.
Several witnesses reported possible sightings of Maddie in Morocco, a country on the trafficking route to Mauritania. Her parents went to Morocco to make appeals for help in the weeks after their daughter’s disappearance.
Brueckner’s name has since come up again in regard to human trafficking, with his ex-girlfriend Anastasia Mekesy telling the Sun she believes Bruecker knows more about Maddie’s disappearance.
“He said she was probably handed over to someone after being taken and, if she were still alive today, they would have found her by now,” she said.
However, in a new documentary, Madeleine McCann: Prime Suspect, Brueckner is said to claim he can prove he was elsewhere when she disappeared.
Euclides Monteiro - Burglary gone wrong:
Euclides Monteiro was identified as a potential suspect. Portuguese police suggested that Monteiro, who was previously employed at the resort where the McCanns were staying, may have kidnapped Maddie as part of a burglary gone wrong.
Monteiro, 40, was sacked shortly before Maddie disappeared for stealing from guests at the resort.
Portuguese investigators suspected him of being involved in the sexual abuse of five girls at holiday homes in the region between 2004 and 2006.
Police had lost crucial time to interview Monteiro because he was missing from a list of current and former Ocean Club employees given to police during the first investigation.
Detectives were set to question him after he was identified as a suspect following suspicious phone records.
However, they missed the chance to interview him after he died in a freak tractor accident in 2009.
Police said Monteiro may have wanted revenge against his former employers.
It was thought he may have stumbled across Maddie while attempting to burgle the McCanns’ room, according to The Telegraph.
Monteiro’s family dismissed the theory, with his sister saying: “It’s ridiculous. The e-fit is a white man and my brother was black.”
This theory was later discredited, and Monteiro was cleared of any involvement in the case with DNA evidence ruling out any involvement.
Portuguese predator took Madeleine McCann:
When Maddie went missing, police looked into the background of a local man who was linked to a string of sexual assaults on five young girls at Portuguese holiday resorts.
Described as a “lone intruder”, the man was said to have carried out two attacks in Praia de Luz, where Maddie and her family were staying.
Anthony Summers told the Netflix documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann: “One startling element is the sheer number of sexual predators in the area at the time.”
A tragic accident - Madeleine McCann falls to her death:
Another theory is that Maddie woke up during the night and went looking for her parents. The suggestion is that she opened the unlocked patio doors and walked out of the apartment and down the hill before falling into a big roadworks pit where she died or was knocked unconscious.
She would not have been spotted when the hole was filled the next morning.
However, this is extremely unlikely given she was familiar with the route to the pool complex where her parents were eating. It was a route the family took a number of times during their stay. Also, this theory would assume the 3-year-old would be able to open the curtains to the apartment, slide the patio door open, then shut the curtains and door behind her.
There were no reported sightings of Maddie near the roadwork site nearby.
Madeleine McCann’s abducted by childless couple:
One theory explored was that Maddie was taken by a couple who couldn’t have children on their own or had previously lost a child.
However, a kidnapper of this nature is likely to take a child who is younger - someone of Maddie’s siblings’ ages. Her twin siblings were just 2 and sleeping beside her when she went missing.
They would have been less likely to wake up and resist. They would also remember far less about any incident, or nothing at all, as they grew up.
To this day, it is not known how Maddie disappeared and whether she is alive or dead.
A video shows staff checking if female students wore bras for an exam.