Madeleine McCann - the missing British girl who disappeared back in May of 2007 - is "assumed" to be dead say German prosecutors, who are now investigating her disappearance after police identified a new suspect last night, BBC News reports.
A 43-year-old German prisoner who traveled around Portugal in a camper van is now the primary focus of Scotland Yard's investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Hans Christian Wolters from the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor's Office, announced in an update on Thursday:
"We are assuming that the girl is dead.
"With the suspect, we are talking about a sexual predator who has already been convicted of crimes against little girls and he's already serving a long sentence."
Police believe the suspect was in the area where the three-year-old was last seen during a vacation with her family back in May of 2007.
The new suspect is described as being white, 6ft tall, slim, with short blond hair. He would have been 30 years old at the time of Madeleine's vanishing.
The man reportedly lived in a ramshackle old farm building just two miles away from where the child vanished in Praia da Luz on Portugal's Algarve coast.
He suddenly abandoned the rented property a year prior to Madeleine's disappearance, but police think he stayed nearby and frequented the area often.
Wolters said the new suspect was thought to have worked in the catering industry, but also committed burglaries in hotels and holiday resorts, as well as being known for dealing drugs.
The Metropolitan Police have since released this video on the new information:The unidentified suspect also littered the land surrounding his rented home with old vehicles that he bought and sold for a living.
Detectives have seized the camper van they believe he used, and are examining it for potential forensic clues, as well as appealing for more information about the vehicle.
Authorities are also after information on the suspect's other vehicle; a Jaguar. The unnamed suspect reportedly transferred it to someone else's name the day after Madeleine went missing.
Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell said:
"We know a lot about the suspect, but we need to know more about his movements on the night Madeleine vanished and in the days before and afterwards.
"We know he was in the resort on the night, about an hour before Madeleine was last seen around 9pm.
"He took a phone call on his Portuguese mobile from another Portuguese mobile. The call lasted half an hour."
Per Sky News, Scotland Yard has said that the German authorities had taken the lead on this aspect of the case because the German suspect was in custody in their country.
The suspect's formerly rented property sits on a remote hillside along a footpath that runs from above the beach where Madeleine and her family played during their week-long vacation.
Per Sky News, A former neighbor of the suspect said:
"He arrived in the mid-90s and rented the place from the English owner.
"He went back to Germany at one stage and moved another German guy in to look after it, then came back and threw him out on the street.
"He was always a bit angry, driving fast up and down the lane, and then one day, around 2006, he just disappeared without a word. I think he left some rent unpaid.
"About six months later I was asked to help clean up the place and it was disgusting, absolutely vile. It had been trashed, with broken stuff like computers all over the place.
"We found a bin bag and inside were wigs and exotic clothing, whether just fancy dress or something stranger I couldn't tell."
Madeleine McCann was three years old when she vanished from her family's vacation apartment on May 3, 2007.
Her whereabouts remain unknown.
Clarence Mitchell, who has represented the McCann family since Madeleine went missing, said that, in 13 years, he couldn't "recall an instance when the police had been so specific about an individual".
He told BBC Breakfast: "Of all the thousands of leads and potential suspects that have been mentioned in the past, there has never been something as clear cut as that from not just one, but three, police forces."
The ensuing search has often been described as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history," per The Daily Telegraph.
Back in 2017, on the 10th anniversary of her disappearance, McCann's parents, Kate and Gerry, told the BBC that they will do "whatever it takes, for as long as it takes" to find their missing child.
Yesterday, Kate and Gerry McCann, said in a statement:
"We welcome the appeal today regarding the disappearance of our daughter, Madeleine.
"We would like to thank the police forces involved for their continued efforts in the search for Madeleine.
"All we have ever wanted is to find her, uncover the truth and bring those responsible to justice. We will never give up hope of finding Madeleine alive but whatever the outcome may be, we need to know, as we need to find peace."
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