Suspected Stalker Questioned: 'However Suppose I Might Be Madeleine?'
A woman indicted with stalking Kate McCann allegedly recorded her a phone message which posed: "suppose I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, who witnesses stated has repeatedly claimed she was the disappeared Madeleine McCann, and Karen Spragg are standing trial charged with harassing Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February this year.
On Monday, Leicester Crown Court was told phone records and data recovered from phones recorded Ms Wandelt repeatedly asking Madeleine's mother for a biological test during 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's vanishing in 2007 - when she was three years old during a trip in Portugal - is one of the most covered child disappearance cases and is still unresolved.
'I Don't Want Money'
One recorded message, presented in court, captured Ms Wandelt stating: "I realize I'm overweight and unattractive like Madeleine used to be, but I know what I know."
While a separate message of Ms Wandelt's recordings with Mrs McCann's recording stated: "What if there is a tiny probability that I am Madeleine? What then? Isn't that important for you?"
"I don't want money, I maintain a existence here in Poland, I just want to discover," the recording stated.
The tribunal was advised that via emails, text messages and phone calls, Ms Wandelt requested a DNA test, transmitted youth pictures to her phone in a effort to demonstrate a similarity to Mrs McCann's disappeared daughter, and stated to have "recollections" from a childhood with the McCanns.
Robert Jones, a data specialist with the police force who gathered the information, informed the court there "showed no any answers" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt also contacted close associates of the McCanns, according to the phone records.
On 9 October 2024, the father answered a phone call from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, saying she had "a wrong number."
On that occasion Ms Wandelt deposited a voicemail on Mrs McCann's recording declaring "I won't give up and I intend to demonstrate my point."
The court was informed the co-defendant established a connection via internet with Ms Wandelt prior to joining her on a appearance to the McCanns' home in Leicestershire in last December.
Call logs revealed Mrs Spragg had communicated through WhatsApp to Mrs McCann to express the media had depicted Ms Wandelt as "emotionally disturbed" but that she deserved to be taken seriously in the months before the visit to that location, the county, in December 2024.
The court learned correspondence between the two accused, in November 2024, considering attempting to obtain Mrs McCann's DNA samples from her trash or from silverware at a restaurant.
"We must make a stand," Mrs Spragg told Ms Wandelt.
On the evening of the trip to their home, the defendant dispatched a message which expressed: "We find ourselves sat adjacent to the McCanns' residence with our lights out similar to private investigators. I wanted to do this with Peter Andrew I hadn't anticipated I would be doing that with the McCanns."
The proceedings ongoing.
