Accused Stalker Asked: 'Yet What If I Am Madeleine?'
A woman charged with stalking Kate McCann apparently deposited her a phone message which questioned: "imagine I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, twenty-four, who a jury heard has repeatedly declared she was the disappeared Madeleine McCann, and Karen Spragg are standing trial charged with stalking Kate and Gerry McCann from June 2022 and February the current year.
On Monday, the tribunal learned phone records and data recovered from phones logged Ms Wandelt persistently requesting Madeleine's mother for a DNA test throughout 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's vanishing in 2007 - when she was three years old during a trip in Portugal - is one of the most publicized investigations and continues to be unresolved.
'I Am Not Seeking Money'
Another phone message, presented in court, captured Ms Wandelt saying: "I realize I'm heavy and plain like Madeleine used to be, but I feel what I know."
While a separate message of Ms Wandelt's one-way conversations with Mrs McCann's voicemail stated: "Imagine there is a slight possibility that I'm her? Then what? Wouldn't that be significant for you?"
"I don't want money, I have a existence here in Poland, I only wish to understand," the recording stated.
The jury was informed that by means of electronic messages, SMS messages and communications, Ms Wandelt requested a DNA test, forwarded youth pictures to her phone in a attempt to show a similarity to Mrs McCann's disappeared daughter, and claimed to have "memories" from a childhood with the McCanns.
The investigator, a data specialist with the police force who compiled the information, informed the court there "seemed to lack any replies" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt furthermore communicated with acquaintances of the McCanns, based on the phone records.
On that date, the father answered a call from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, declaring she had "the wrong phone."
On that occasion Ms Wandelt deposited a message on Mrs McCann's voicemail saying "I won't give up and I will prove my position."
The court heard the co-defendant struck up a relationship via internet with Ms Wandelt before accompanying her on a trip to the McCanns' home in that area in last December.
Communication data demonstrated Mrs Spragg had communicated using WhatsApp to Mrs McCann to express the media had portrayed Ms Wandelt as "mentally unstable" but that she ought to be taken seriously in the time before the appearance to the village, that area, in December 2024.
The court heard correspondence between the two defendants, in last November, considering attempting to get Mrs McCann's genetic material from her bins or from silverware at a dining venue.
"We must assert ourselves," Mrs Spragg advised Ms Wandelt.
On the occasion of the visit to their house, Mrs Spragg transmitted a message which stated: "We are positioned adjacent to the McCanns' home with our headlights off similar to investigators. I had hoped to achieve this with someone else I hadn't anticipated I would be involved in this with the McCanns."
The trial ongoing.