One of the prosecutors investigating the prime suspect in the case of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann says he believes the British child died shortly after she was abducted.
Hans Christian Wolters from the Braunschweig Public Prosecutor's Office is currently leading the investigation into a 43-year-old convicted child sex offender, named in German media as Christian B.
Now, he has told UK newspaper The Times that he thinks Madeleine was killed after being snatched from her family's vacation apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, back in 2007.
Wolters told the publication:
"My private opinion is that he relatively quickly killed the girl, possibly abused her, and then killed her.
"We believe our suspect committed further crimes, especially sexual crimes, in Portugal possibly but also elsewhere like Germany."
As reported by the Daily Mail, the suspect once wrote about his chilling desire to "catch something little and use it for days" in a message to another pedophile online.
When he was asked about getting caught he added: "Meh, if the evidence is destroyed..."
Wolters told Sky News on Monday that investigators have some evidence that Madeleine McCann is dead, but did not have enough for a trial."The hard evidence we don't have, we don't have the crucial evidence of Madeleine McCann's body", he said.
Wolters added:
"We expect that she is dead, but we don't have enough evidence that we can get a warrant for our suspect in Germany for the murder of Madeleine McCann.
"At the moment, we also don't have enough proof for a trial at court, but we have some evidence that the suspect has done the deed.
"That's why we need more information from people, especially places he has lived, so we can target these places especially and search there for Madeleine."
Wolters then reportedly told BBC News: "We have evidence against the accused which leads us to believe that he really killed Madeleine but this evidence is not strong enough at the moment to take him to court."
The evidence is "strong enough to say that the girl is dead and strong enough to accuse a specific individual of murder - that strong," he said.
Christian B, is reportedly serving a seven-year prison sentence for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman back in 2004. He is also reportedly in the process of appealing this conviction.
The Mail also reports that Christian B has been linked to the murder of German schoolgirl Peggy Knobloch, who disappeared on her way home from school back in 2001.
Madeleine McCann was three years old when she vanished from her family's vacation apartment on May 3, 2007.
Her whereabouts remain unknown.
Christian B 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 suspect reportedly lived in a ramshackle old farm building just two miles away from where Madeline 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 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."
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.
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