Private Detective Who Led the Hunt for Madeleine McCann After Her Disappearance 17 Years Ago Has Ran a Biometric Analysis And Says The Woman Who Went Viral Claiming To Be The Missing Girl Bears No Resemblance
Miguel Villagran. Getty Images.The mystery surrounding Madeleine McCann has resurfaced with a Polish woman going viral claiming to be her. The story was covered on the Rundown yesterday, but I thought it should hit the blog as well with some new developments coming to light.
Backstory: As a quick catch up in case you are out of the loop here, McCann was abducted while on vacation in Portugal with her British family back in 2007 when she was just three years old. While their children were asleep the parents went out to dinner with some friends close by. They would periodically check in to make sure everything was alright, but at some point Madeleine went missing. The parents immediately became suspects with how sketchy everything sounded, but were eventually cleared. Some believe the focus on them allowed the actual kidnapper to get away. Since then there have been several suspects, but nothing has ever been proven. Most believe she's unfortunately dead by now with how much time has passed. An 8 part Netflix doc on all of this was released back in 2019.
New Girl: The reason this is all becoming the talk of the town again is because a 21 year old Polish girl named Julia Faustyna (also being referred as Julia Wendell or Julia Wandelt) believes she is in fact the missing girl. Faustyna claims to not remember her childhood and isn't sure of her real age. She claims she has physical similarities to McCann including a brown smudge on her right iris. Just recently she created this Instagram account in an effort to get her story out there and confront the parents. Definitely something you do before trying to contact the real parents if you're actually the missing girl. The account has gone viral and has other a million followers already. Over the last few days she's actively tried to set up a DNA test with the parents to prove who she is.
Fucking nuts right? While unlikely to actually be McCann this is certainly something worth keeping tabs on. I mean could you imagine if it was actually her? Chaos.
Fortunately in 2023 we have DNA tests that can pretty easily sort out what the deal is here. According to Julia there's been an agreement made to have that done, although there's been no confirmation from the parents that's happening. Imagine what would happen in this situation back in the old days. You lose your kid like this and someone just claims to be them decades later with some interesting physical similarities. You kinda have to believe them, right?
Another development is that a private detective who once led a hunt for McCann ran a biometric analysis between the two. It showed no resemblance between Julia and Maddie.
(Mirror) Julia Wendell, from Poland, went viral this week after creating an Instagram account named @iammadeleinemcann, saying she started wondering if she was Maddie "a few months ago" after hearing "something" from her grandma.
She alleged that the McCanns approached her to take a DNA test, and claimed to have a freckle on her leg as well as a speck in her eye in the same places as Maddie. However, Francisco Marco - a private detective who led the hunt for Maddie after her disappearance - says he has carried out analysis which rules out the possibility of Ms Wendell being the missing girl.
He told Spanish network RAC1: "I have done a biometric search and there is no resemblance to Madeleine's features."
The former director of the Metodo 3 detective agency said it was strange that Ms Wendell posted the unsubstantiated claims to social media first, before reaching out to Maddie's family.
Again, the DNA test will tell us everything we need to know, but the biometric scan is telling. Not an end all be all, but probably pointing us in the right direction. Naturally TikTok has dipped their toe into the investigation and come up with their own theories.
In all likelihood this Julia character is sadly off her rocker and not who she says she is. There's reason to believe she actually thinks she's this person and if that's the case I hope she gets the proper help she needs. Gotta feel terrible for the parents for being dragged back into this story after probably making peace with it a while ago. Also gotta be extremely shitty for the actual parents of Julia's right now. Wouldn't wish this shit on anyone.
There's also the very small chance this is in fact the same person, which would promptly break the internet. This would quickly transition from a wild internet goose chase to one of the craziest stories in a long fucking time. How would the parents even handle all that? There's no playbook for losing your kid 17 years ago, presuming them dead, and then accepting back into the family just like that when they're an adult. Maybe watch Elf a few times? Nope, that's definitely not the same thing.