Police and corpse hunter dogs are on the scene in a backyard in Hannover, Germany, where a sealed secret cellar has just been unearthed in search of the missing British Madeleine McCann. The cellar was once under a garden shed on a property where German pedophile Christian Brueckner, the latest suspect in the missing boy’s case, lived. The shed was demolished years ago, but neighbors said Brueckner once spent hours inside.
Police were seen Thursday carrying a series of items from the basement, including blue bags of forensic evidence and a boy’s bucket.
McCann was about to turn four when she was snatched from her bed while her twin brothers slept nearby in a 2007 Portugal vacation rental. Her parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, were dining with friends a few hundred yards away when she disappeared. .
The case, which has been closed and reopened by Portuguese police on several occasions, has accelerated after German authorities identified the convicted pedophile, who is also under investigation for raping a 72-year-old woman.
British police never lost faith in discovering what happened, spending millions of pounds over the past 13 years in an investigation called Operation Grange, through which they translated the Portuguese dossier and interviewed many key witnesses.
But it is the German police that have so far advanced in the search for the truth. Initially they said they were sure McCann was dead, but did not provide clues to support their line of thought.
McCann’s parents have not commented on the latest development of the case, but they are said to be watching closely in hopes of finally discovering what happened to their missing daughter.
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