Julia Wendell, from Poland, may be missing girl Madeleine McCann.
Julia, who is said to be 21, has shared several pieces of ‘evidence’ to support her claim and has now received confirmation that Maddie’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann have agreed to a DNA test.
Polish woman claims to be missing Madeleine
Madeleine McCann is perhaps one of the world’s most famous missing person cases in the world. The then-three-year-old went missing from her bed in a holiday apartment in Portugal on 3 May 2007.
Since then her parents have fought tirelessly to try and locate her, with many leads and sighting claims. German investigators now believe that Maddie was killed by sex predator Christian Brueckner, who is in prison on rape and sexual abuse counts. He has not been charged with any offence in relation to Maddie’s disappearance.
Despite extensive searches and numerous police investigations, Maddie’s body has never been found.
Maddie would be 19 years old now.
‘Help me’
Julia recently shared her story through her Instagram account, @IamMadeleineMcCann, asking the media for help to figure out if she could be the missing girl and to put her in touch with Gerry and Kate McCann.
Julia promises she is not looking for fame – she just wants the truth.
“After all this confusion I began to do my own research. I discovered what had happened to Madeleine McCann and started to piece together the similarities we shared.
It has been so stressful trying to get people to listen to me. Police investigators from UK and Poland try to ignore me. I will tell my story in posts here. Help me,” she wrote on Instagram.
Is Julia really Madeleine McCann? The evidence:
Julia isn’t the first person to claim she could be missing Madeline. However, her likeness is quite convincing and has captivated the media.
Here’s the ‘evidence’ that Julia has put forward.
1. No baby pics or medical records
Julia claims that her mother refuses to show her photos of Julia when she was very young or any pregnancy pictures.
“She never shows them. She just always tells me I’m crazy,” Julia shared.
Julia also states that her past kindergarten teacher at school told her she didn’t start at the same time as the other children, but Julia’s mother denies this.
2. No childhood memories
Julia also explains that she “remembers practically nothing from her childhood” – just a few brief memories of a holiday and rarely any memories with her mother.
She does explain that she has post-traumatic stress amnesia due to childhood abuse. She has been in a psychiatric ward in the past where she started to reflect on her childhood and felt like something wasn’t right.
3. Childhood abuse from German man named Ney
Julia states that she was the victim of abuse by a German man with the last name Ney – he is her grandmother’s second husband. This happens to be the same last name as the German man who was arrested for Maddie’s kidnapping several years ago – Marvin Ney.
As mentioned above, there have been several suspects in the Madeleine McCann case but Julia also says she recognised the man, Marvin Ney, in one of the police photos.
Julia is suggesting that Marvin Ney – the German man accused of kidnapping Maddie/Julia, is the son of her abuser.
4. The Wroclaw sighting
There have been several claimed sightings of Maddie over the past years including one made by a medical student a few days after Maddie’s abduction.
The medical student claimed he saw Madeleine in Wroclaw, Poland, which was where Julia lived at the time.
5. Similar features
Julia and Madeleine do share a lot of facial similarities including birthmarks on their faces.
Julia and Maddie have the same eyes, nose, and even mouth structure, but there are also differences in their facial features. While some find that the two girls look identical, others don’t seem to think so.
6. The eye defect
Perhaps the most convincing evidence is that both girls appear to have the same eye defect.
In Maddie’s case, this was caused by an extremely rare condition coloboma in her right eye, which police had hoped for years would help identify her. Julia was told her eye defect was “inoperable”, and, although it has faded over time, it does look very similar.
Julia has several other pieces of ‘evidence’ that she explains in a post on Instagram. She also shares photos of Kate, Gerry and herself to showcase the similarities.
Answers to come
Julia’s social media account, where she shares photos as evidence that she is the missing girl, has over 500k followers and captured the attention of millions of people online.
Commenters are torn on whether they think she is Maddie or not or if this is a publicity stunt but the claims have garnished a ton of attention.
Maddie’s parents agreed to a DNA test this week.
“The family are taking no chances. They are willing to look at all leads,” a source told the Daily Star.
“It is important they look at all of the factors. The girl does look similar, there’s no disputing that. If what she says is true, there is every chance it could be her. It all adds up.”
Even if Julia isn’t Madeleine McCann, it would appear she is someone’s missing child. Hopefully, both the McCann’s and Julia will have some concrete answers and closure soon.
More to come.
