Woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann charged with stalking girl’s family

A woman who once claimed to be Madeleine McCann is now in custody after she was accused of stalking the missing girl’s family by allegedly contacting them incessantly and turning up at their home in the U.K.

Julia Wandel, also known as Julia Wandelt or Julia Wendell, was arrested on Wednesday at an airport in Bristol, reports The Guardian.

According to the outlet, she has been charged with stalking four members of the McCann family — parents Gerry and Kate, and twin siblings Sean and Amelie — throughout the duration of 2024 and into 2025. She is also alleged to have paid unwanted and unsolicited visits to their home twice, in May and December of last year.

The charges state the alleged contact, which came in the form of phone calls, voicemails, a letter and WhatsApp and Instagram messages, “had a substantial adverse effect” on the family.

In 2023, Wandel began posting numerous pieces of “evidence” to social media, claiming she believed she might be the missing McCann, who vanished without a trace in 2007 when she was just three years old while on a family vacation in Portugal.

The crux of her “proof” regarding physical resemblance revolved around McCann’s rare eye disorder, one Wandel claimed to share. When McCann went missing, a coloboma abnormality in her right eye was used as a major identifying feature. (A coloboma is a hole in the structure of the eye, often causing a visible tear or hole.)

She also claimed to have the same dimple as McCann, several similarly located moles and freckles, and similar gaps in her teeth.

However, two months later her spokesperson said a DNA test confirmed Wandel was not the missing girl. In fact, the test showed that Wandel has near 100 per cent Polish heritage, with no evidence of British or even German ancestry.

Polish police disputed Wandel’s claims that she was McCann about a week after she reached viral fame and Wandel’s own parents spoke out about her campaign, saying they were “devastated” by her claims and the worldwide media attention it garnered.

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“It is obvious that Julia isn’t Maddie,” they wrote in a statement on the “Missing Years Ago” Facebook page, adding that their daughter has received therapy from psychologists and psychiatrists in the past, but suggesting that may have stopped recently.

“She refuses treatment, doesn’t take medicines regularly … we are devastated at the current situation.”

According to The Guardian, Wandel appeared in court on Friday to face her charges. She did not put forward any pleas. She will appear for a full plea hearing on April 7 and will remain in custody.

The outlet reports that a second woman was also arrested alongside Wandel on suspicion of stalking. The 60-year-old Welsh woman was released on bail.

On May 3, 2007, McCann went missing from a hotel room in Praia da Luz, Portugal, while on vacation with her parents. Her parents were dining with friends at a nearby tapas bar, leaving McCann and her two siblings asleep in their bedroom on the evening she disappeared.

Her disappearance launched a cross-country investigation and resulted in an international media frenzy.

For more than a decade, Portuguese, English and German police forces have collaborated in an attempt to locate McCann and her kidnapper.

In June 2020, German police said that McCann is assumed dead but British authorities continue to treat her disappearance as a missing person case.