Sniffer dogs have said to have barked when entering an underground cellar near where suspect Christian Brueckner lived outside Hannover, Germany. Video / Agencia EFE via AP
German police are being urged to dig at a property previously owned by Madeleine McCann suspect Christian Brueckner, with the new owner revealing: "I'm worried I'm sleeping over a dead body."
The report, in British newspaper the Sun, says that Brueckner lived at the property for three years - andthe site is rumoured to have a cellar beneath it.
A reporter for the newspaper uncovered what appeared to be a boarded-up well at the site, in the German city of Hannover.
The Sun reports that Brueckner lived there between 2013 and 2016, the same time that 5-year-old Inga Gehricke disappeared from a nearby forest.
The girl has been described in the media as the "German Maddie" after she vanished during a family barbecue.
Another neighbour told the Sun that Brueckner had constructed a hidden cellar at the site.
"He excavated and dug out the bottom of the floor of the house and took out all the stone 3m deep," 80-year-old Manfred Richter told the British tabloid.
"He dug a big hole 3 by 6 meters wide. He carried all the stones and rocks out to the front of the house and left a huge mound of it in the garden.
"He put planks of wood over the top of the hole. It took him nearly two months to do this.
"He worked first thing in the morning and stopped last thing at night."
German police officers search with dogs an allotment garden plot in Seelze, near Hannover, Germany. Photo / AP
German police officers search an allotment garden plot in Seelze, near Hannover, Germany. Photo / AP
German police investigating the disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann in Portugal in 2007 searched another garden plot in Hannover in connection with their probe, prosecutors revealed earlier this week.
A hidden cellar was reportedly discovered by police at the allotment in Hannover, previously owned by Brueckner
A neighbour said the plot had a small shack standing on a concrete base with the hidden cellar underneath.
The structure was mysteriously demolished shortly after Brueckner left the site in 2007 or 2008, with no visible sign of the cellar left, however it was finally uncovered this week by police who lifted off a cement block covering the basement.
A forensic team were seen removing two skips full of concrete blocks and a child's bucket as they searched the foundations of the shack.
