Polish woman doubles down on Maddie McCann claims
Polish woman Julia Wandelt has doubled down on her belief that she is Madeleine McCann, claiming to have new DNA evidence that "strongly supports" her theory.
Wandelt has long claimed to be the missing child, after first posting her theories on Instagram in February 2023.
A DNA test at the time found Ms Wandelt to be of Polish, Lithuanian and Romanian heritage, proving she could not be Madeleine, who is of British descent.
She went on to tell the BBC in an interview last year that she “regretted” the ordeal, and had apologised to the McCanns for any pain she’d caused unintentionally by claiming to be their child who went missing in Portugal in 2007.
After disappearing from the public eye, Wandelt has resurfaced online to share the “results” of a fresh DNA test she claimed were submitted to a “world expert”, who compared them to the crime scene following Madeleine’s disappearance.
She also claimed they matched the toddler’s eyes, teeth and voice with her own.
In a series of posts in which she referred to Kate and Gerry McCann has “my parents”, Ms Wandelt said her “actual dna results show that I am part British, part Irish” and that genetic evidence “strongly supports that Gerry McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father”.
Ms Wandelt’s “source” claimed her DNA results were a “perfect match” to the samples taken from the scene of Madeleine’s disappearance.
The unnamed source allegedly analysed “hair obtained from the floor of the crime scene in Portugal” and “saliva obtained from the bed quilt at the scene”, resulting in a 69.23 per cent match which “suggests a biological connection between the two individuals”.
“The genetic evidence strongly supports that (Gerry) McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father, as the data aligns perfectly with a parent-child relationship,” they claimed.
“If this analysis is accurate and properly derived from their DNA samples, the relationship between McCann and Julia Wandelt is biologically consistent with that of a father and daughter.”
A spokesperson for Ms Wandelt told The Daily Mail she remains determined for the McCanns and her Polish parents to take a DNA test, despite both parties’ repeated refusal to do so.
Image credits: Instagram / Getty Images