Madeleine McCann went missing in 2007.
By Jamie Johnson of the Daily Telegraph
The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann was feared as a gun-toting criminal according to locals in the small town he holed up in shortly after she went missing.
Christian Brückner found a job as a waiter in a remote village 40 miles from Praia da Luz and befriended a German couple who looked after foster children, often staying at their house, local reports claimed on Sunday.
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Remarkably, Portuguese police have not yet visited the village of Foral to interview potential witnesses, despite the overwhelming evidence that the convicted sex offender was living there in the weeks after Madeleine disappeared.
In another chilling claim, locals said that Brückner led a search party to find a teenage girl who ran away from the foster home in the summer of 2007, and found her in a seaside town nearby.
Although the timeline is unclear, it has been said that the young girl was pregnant by the time she returned and left the area for good soon after.
Brückner has been identified as being in Praia da Luz on the night Madeleine was taken from her hotel room, and new reports on Sunday claimed that he had been tipped off that guests at the Ocean Club hotel often left their rooms unlocked and were ripe for burglary.
His movements in the immediate aftermath of the disappearance had been a mystery, with some suggestions that he had returned to Germany.
But it is now clear that as police descended on the town of Praia da Luz, Brückner decamped and drove his VW T3 Westfalia campervan to a remote village surrounded by farmland some 40 miles away.
By this point, aged 30, he already had convictions for child sex offences, drug dealing, theft and he had raped a 72-year-old American tourist at a luxury seafront villa in Praia da Luz.
"Everyone was absolutely terrified when he was around because he used to carry a gun," said Lia Silva, a local woman who lived with her parents when Brückner arrived.
Angie Dawes, a British woman who also lives in the village, told the Sun on Sunday that he used to leer at her, which she said "chilled her to the bone".
"I would never let myself be left alone with him. I'd always make sure dad was there," she added.
Another local, who did not want to be named, said that she was constantly worrying about her teenage daughter, who would walk off to meet the German couple and their "new friend" and came back with cigarettes.
Questions are now being asked about the relationship between the foster carers and the convicted paedophile they invited into their home.
On Sunday, the Telegraph established that the woman is called Nicole Fehlinger, and is from the same German town as Brückner.
Fehlinger was a member of a local "Save Our Pets" organisation in the Algarve, and a website entry says that she once took in a pet during an emergency.
Her linkedin profile says she is "self-employed in social services".
Fehlinger and her husband rented the large, but run-down villa from Lia Silva.
From there she established a base to foster German children, and looked after a teenage boy for three years before 2007.
It is not uncommon for German children to be sent to live abroad with foster parents, but it requires court approval from both countries.
A spokesman for the German Ministry of Family Affairs said last year: "Just under 900 children and adolescents are currently staying with foster families abroad."
Silva said: "She told people she was a child psychologist and was getting these troubled children through some arrangement with the German government. As far as I know she had two kids. The first one was fine, but the second one ran away.
"How they got this guy [Brückner] to come looking for her, I've got no idea. This was supposed to be children coming in from Germany for her to help, and suddenly the girl just disappears. She was maybe 15 or 16.
"He [Brückner] found her. She was in Lagos with a group of Romanians, and from what I've heard at the time, when she got back to the house, she was pregnant.
"Then the teenager disappeared and then this guy disappeared. I assumed she was taken back to Germany given the circumstances that she was pregnant.
"After this incident the woman never got any more children to look after."
Fehlinger left the area towards the end of 2009.
The Telegraph attempted to contact her for comment.
The couple have not been accused of any wrongdoing and it is not known if the couple knew of Brückner's criminal past.
By the time they moved out, Brückner had already left the country, He was arrested on the northern German island of Sylt, towards the end of 2017, where he had been selling drugs.
He moved to Dresden and then to Augsburg, staying in the attic of a home owned by landlord Alexander Bischoff, 64, for two or three weeks at a time. But according to Bischoff, Brückner was often away, including on trips back to Portugal.
In 2015, he was in the Algarve once more, selling his white and yellow campervan to a scrap dealer not far from Fornal, where it would later be seized by police.
Now, he is languishing in a jail in Kiel, but still strikes fear into those who came across him.
One elderly woman, sat at the O Fornal restaurant and cafe where Brückner used to work, started crying when asked about him yesterday.
"I don't want to relive this man. The destruction he has caused. The things he had done. I cannot bear to think of it."
May 3, 2007
Kate and Gerry McCann leave their three children — Madeline, Amelie and Sean — asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while having an evening meal with friends. Later that night, 3-year-old year Madeleine goes missing from her bed. The following day, an investigation is launched into her disappearance by Portuguese police.
May 14, 2007
Robert Murat, an Anglo-Portuguese man, is questioned by the Portuguese police and named an official suspect, or arguido.
August 3, 2007
100 days after Madeleine's disappearance, investigating officers publicly acknowledge that the 3-year-old year could be dead.
September 7, 2007
Gerry and Kate McCann are questioned by Portuguese police and are named as official suspects within the case.
October 2, 2007
Goncalo Amaral, the Portuguese detective in charge of the inquiry, is removed from the case after criticising the British police in a Portuguese newspaper interview. He is later replaced on October 9 by Paulo Rebelo, a senior Portuguese detective.
March 19, 2008
Kate and Gerry McCann are awarded £550,000 libel damages and front-page apologies from Express Newspapers over allegations they were responsible for their daughter's death. The apology headline reads — "Kate and Gerry McCann: Sorry".
July 21, 2008
The Portuguese authorities end their investigation and remove the arguido status of Gerry and Kate McCann as well as Robert Murat.
May 2011
Under the guidance of Home Secretary, Theresa May, Scotland Yard launches Operation Grange. The operation led by the Metropolitan Police Service aims to review the circumstances of Madeline's death.
April 25, 2017
Met Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley says that the police have "a significant line of inquiry" that is "worth pursuing", but stresses that there is no "definitive evidence" as to whether Madeleine is dead or alive.
June 5, 2019
The government announces in June 2019, that it will continue to fund Operation Grange until March 31, 2020. The Home Office also confirm that £11.75 million has been spent on the operation since 2011.
June 3, 2020
Scotland Yard identify a German man as the main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Residential areas in both countries have suffered from deadly strikes in the conflict.