Last month marked the 13th anniversary of the disappearance of three-year-old Madeleine McCann.
On May 3, 2007, the British toddler vanished from her bed while sleeping in her family’s Portugal holiday apartment with her twin siblings, while her parents dined 55 metres away at a tapas bar with friends.
Throughout the evening, the adults took it in turns to check on the kids, but at 10pm during one of these routine checks, Kate McCann discovered her daughter missing.
WATCH: The trailer for the documentary Disappearance Of Madeleine McCann, which was released last year. Post continues after video.
Since that day, there has been no sign of the little girl, despite Madeleine McCann’s story being the most publicised missing person’s cases in modern history. Theories about what happened to her range from accidental death to sex trafficking, and being snatched by a childless couple. Maddie’s own parents were also considered as her kidnappers at one point.
Finally, more than a decade after Maddie’s disappearance there’s been a breakthrough.
Police have identified a jailed German paedophile, whose name has not been released, as a suspect in Maddie’s case.
The 43-year-old German national, described as white with short blond hair, about 6ft tall and of a slim build, is known to have been in and around Praia da Luz on Portugal’s Algarve coast at the time the little girl vanished.
Sky News reports he is behind bars for a sex crime and drug trafficking and has two previous convictions for “sexual contact with girls”.
A half-hour phone call was made to the man’s Portuguese mobile phone around an hour before Madeleine is believed to have gone missing.
He has been linked to a white and yellow VW T3 Westfalia campervan that was pictured driving around the tourist region in 2007.
Scotland Yard said the man, who would have been 30 at the time, was driving the vehicle in the Praia da Luz area in the days before Madeleine’s disappearance.
