Accused Stalker Asked: 'However Imagine I Might Be Madeleine?'
A woman indicted with harassing Kate McCann allegedly left her a recorded message which questioned: "imagine I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, 24, who court testimony revealed has repeatedly claimed she was the vanished Madeleine McCann, and Karen Spragg are standing trial indicted with harassing Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February 2025.
On Monday, the court heard phone records and evidence retrieved from phones logged Ms Wandelt consistently asking Madeleine's mother for a DNA test during 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 - at the age of three during a family holiday in Portugal - is among the most publicized child disappearance cases and continues to be unsolved.
'I Am Not Seeking Money'
Another recorded message, presented in court, captured Ms Wandelt saying: "I understand I'm fat and unattractive like Madeleine used to be, but I feel what I know."
While one recording of Ms Wandelt's one-way conversations with Mrs McCann's recording stated: "Imagine there is a tiny probability that I am Madeleine? What happens next? Is that not important for you?"
"I am not seeking money, I have a life here in Poland, I simply desire to discover," the recording stated.
The jury was informed that by means of electronic messages, mobile messages and calls, Ms Wandelt demanded a genetic test, sent youth pictures to her phone in a bid to demonstrate a resemblance to Mrs McCann's disappeared daughter, and asserted to have "recollections" from a early life with the McCanns.
An intelligence analyst, an investigator with Leicestershire Police who gathered the data, informed the court there "didn't appear to be any answers" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt also contacted family friends of the McCanns, according to the phone records.
On 9 October 2024, Gerry McCann picked up a communication from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, stating she had "the wrong phone."
During that incident Ms Wandelt deposited a voicemail on Mrs McCann's answerphone declaring "I will persist and I will prove my claim."
The court heard Mrs Spragg struck up a relationship online with Ms Wandelt preceding accompanying her on a appearance to the McCanns' home in the county in last December.
Phone records demonstrated Mrs Spragg had communicated through communication app to Mrs McCann to say the media had depicted Ms Wandelt as "emotionally disturbed" but that she deserved to be considered genuine in the months leading up to the appearance to the village, that area, in December 2024.
The court heard communications between the two accused, in that autumn, discussing trying to get Mrs McCann's biological evidence from her garbage or from utensils at a restaurant.
"We need to take action," Mrs Spragg advised Ms Wandelt.
On the evening of the appearance to their home, Mrs Spragg dispatched a text which stated: "We are sat near the McCanns' residence with our vehicle dark similar to private investigators. I wanted to accomplish this with Peter Andrew I never thought I would be engaged in this with the McCanns."
The trial ongoing.
