🔗 Share this article

A individual accused with stalking Kate McCann allegedly recorded her a recorded message which asked: "imagine I am Madeleine?"

Julia Wandelt, 24, who witnesses stated has repeatedly declared she was the disappeared Madeleine McCann, and her co-defendant are on trial indicted with harassing Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February 2025.

On Monday, Leicester Crown Court was told call records and information obtained from phones documented Ms Wandelt repeatedly requesting Madeleine's mother for a genetic test throughout that period.

Madeleine's disappearance in 2007 - as a three-year-old during a family holiday in Portugal - is one of the most covered investigations and continues to be open.

'I Am Not Seeking Money'

A separate voicemail, shared in court, captured Ms Wandelt saying: "I realize I'm heavy and not pretty like Madeleine had been, but I believe what I feel."

While a separate message of Ms Wandelt's one-way conversations with Mrs McCann's voicemail said: "What if there is a small chance that I am Madeleine? What happens next? Wouldn't that be important for you?"

"I do not need money, I possess a living here in Poland, I only wish to know," the message continued.

The jury was advised that through emails, mobile messages and calls, Ms Wandelt requested a DNA test, forwarded youth pictures to her phone in a attempt to display a likeness to Mrs McCann's missing daughter, and asserted to have "memories" from a early life with the McCanns.

Robert Jones, an intelligence analyst with Leicestershire Police who collated the evidence, told the court there "seemed to lack any responses" from Mrs McCann.

Ms Wandelt additionally reached out to family friends of the McCanns, according to the phone records.

On 9 October 2024, Gerry McCann answered a call from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, declaring she had "a wrong number."

That day Ms Wandelt left a message on Mrs McCann's recording saying "I won't give up and I will prove my position."

The court learned Mrs Spragg developed a relationship via internet with Ms Wandelt preceding assisting her on a appearance to the McCanns' residence in the county in December 2024.

Communication data demonstrated Mrs Spragg had reached out using communication app to Mrs McCann to say the news outlets had depicted Ms Wandelt as "mentally unstable" but that she deserved to be taken seriously in the period leading up to the visit to that location, Leicestershire, in last December.

The court learned message exchanges between the two defendants, in November 2024, discussing attempting to acquire Mrs McCann's DNA samples from her trash or from silverware at a restaurant.

"We need to make a stand," the co-defendant told Ms Wandelt.

On the occasion of the trip to their home, Mrs Spragg transmitted a text which said: "We find ourselves sat adjacent to the McCanns' home with our lights out similar to investigators. I desired to accomplish this with someone else I hadn't anticipated I would be engaged in this with the McCanns."

The proceedings proceeds.