The young Polish woman who has gone viral in recent weeks over her claim that she could be Madeleine McCann has reportedly submitted DNA samples for forensic testing.
Julia Faustyna - who is also being referred to as Julia Wendell or Julia Wandelt in media reports - believes she could be the British girl who disappeared nearly 16 years ago.
On May 3, 2007, the then-three-year-old went missing in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on vacation with her parents, Kate and Gerry.
At the time of her disappearance, her parents were out to dinner with their friends at a tapas bar close by, having left Madeleine and her two younger siblings asleep in their hotel room.
Before ultimately deleting her social media accounts, Julia had managed to rack up a large following on Instagram, where she posted images of both her and Madeleine in order to draw attention to similarities in their appearance.
There has long been talk of the 21-year-old - who moved from Poland to the US recently - doing a DNA test to prove her claims.
Helping her in this pursuit is Dr. Fia Johansson - a private investigator and self-professed medium.
Dr. Johansson told RadarOnline.com that Julia has submitted samples for three separate forensic tests that will establish her DNA sequence. She has also done a DNA test to outline her ethnic background - akin to 23andMe.
"If the results come back that she’s British or from that area then we are going to continue our investigation into Madeleine McCann and communicate with the detectives in Portugal," she told the outlet. "We have a lot of evidence right now that shows Julia was definitely trafficked to Poland from another country by an international sex trafficking group."
"We are still conducting an investigation but Julia is definitely not the biological daughter of her parents in Poland," added Dr. Johansson.
For now they are just "waiting for science to show exactly where she’s from."
Julia's family in Poland have denied her claim that she was taken from another family.
She insists, though, that she was never treated as part of the family and says she has no recollection of large chunks of her early childhood. She also claims she was abused by a German man who resembled a suspect in the case.
With Dr. Johansson by her side, Julia recently made the move from her native Poland to California due to death threats she has received in the former country.
Per The Irish Mirror, Dr. Johansson said in a social media post: "Julia's mental health, at this moment, it's not okay because of a lot of haters out there, because of a lot of comments and a lot of nastiness that went through directly to her skin.
"At this moment, she needs help. I do understand that 50 per cent of you guys hate her now to the hundredth degree, just because you guys think and believe that she's 'not the real person, that she's not Madeleine, she's this and that'.
"I'm telling you guys, my team and me, we are investigating already about her family, her background, where she came from, which family she belonged to, what school actually she went to, and all other details."
