>> he's a deeply, deeply troubling man, a very dangerous individual. >> the local prosecutor also says that children's bathing suits were found on the premises. >> there was a person. there was a face. there is a profile. >> the mccanns are finally cleared of suspicion in the disappearance of their daughter, madeleine, but they are no closer to finding her than the night she went missing. shocking revelations, terrifying theories, and a mysterious lead that may finally hold the answers -- that's next, in part two. i'm jesse l martin. thanks for watching. good night. one, two, three.

one, two, three. that was my shoe! >> that is your shoe. >> what color is it? >> these are my shoes. >> are they new? >> yeah. >> and what color are they? >> pink. >> lovely! >> hello and welcome. i'm jesse l. martin. the southern coast of portugal -- beautiful beaches, perfect weather, picturesque towns. it's the ideal setting for a getaway. but for one british family, the perfect vacation became an unimaginable horror. may 2007 -- 3-year-old madeleine mccann disappeared from her bed at the ocean club resort. what went on in apartment 5a?

the answer would remain a mystery for years. this is how it really happened. >> kate and gerry mccann had two adorable twins. they were two years old. madeleine was almost four. >> madeleine had a stuffed animal that was her comfort toy she brought everywhere with her, cuddle cat. they wanted to go on a great vacation with their three children. praia da luz is a beautiful little town in portugal. the ocean club was basically like a small hotel where you would rent a little apartment. they had a nice pool there. it's close to the beach. >> i think it's fair to say that kate and gerry mccann had no idea what they were in for when they stayed at the ocean club that holiday in 2007.

>> we've always had a routine where the kids, the twins usually went to bed about 7:00, and madeleine used to have a little bit of extra time. pretty much took them into the bedroom and read them a story and tucked them into their cots for the twins and madeleine into bed. and then we got changed and ready, and we'd arranged to have dinner with our friends. >> they would leave the kids in the apartments by themselves. >> the tapas restaurant where the mccanns would go with their friends was in the resort, right across the swimming pool from the family apartment. >> it's only about 50 meters away. for me, you know, if your children are asleep upstairs in a bedroom and you're dining in the garden, you're out of sight and you can't hear them. and that's the similar thing to

me. >> the mccanns and their friends, every half hour, would check on everyone's kids. >> so at 10:00, around 10:00, it was kate's turn to go and check on the apartments. >> i went through the patio doors at the back. and i just noticed that the door to the children's bedroom was quite far open. so i went to close over the children's door, and just as i was about to close it, a gust of wind shut it. and then i went back just to open the door again a little bit. i just glanced at madeleine's bed. >> and she saw madeleine was gone. >> cuddle cat was still there. >> if madeleine would have gone away by herself, she would've taken cuddle cat. >> she freaked, you know, absolutely freaked. >> groups were going around the whole resort just shouting her name, looking for her. >> i ran into the bedroom, and i found it just as kate described.

and when i saw that window pushed wide open and the shutter up, which we had left down the whole week, it was horrible. >> and the club phoned the police. it took them quite a while to figure out, "hey, this is an abduction." >> there was almost no evidence to follow. >> it was almost as though the little girl had vanished into thin air. >> words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling as the parents of our beautiful daughter madeleine. >> and then, a potential break in the case from the night madeleine went missing. >> jane tanner was one of the other parents in the party. around 9:15, jane went back to check on her own children. and she reports that she saw a man carrying a child across the street, into the night. >> i know what i saw, and i think it's important that people

know what i saw because, you know, i believe madeleine was abducted. >> there is a sketch here of this man who was seen carrying a child away wearing identical pajamas to madeleine, shortly after i checked on her. >> the tanner sighting became one of the most scrutinized aspects of the case, but it was always unclear what exactly jane tanner really saw and who that was. >> eventually, the lead went cold. >> gerry was invested in the idea that his child needed to be everywhere, her photo everywhere. >> her parents have mounted an international campaign to keep her name in front of the international public. >> they have toured europe, north africa, and the united states. >> the pope, now the latest player in a relentless media campaign that has grown beyond the borders of england and portugal. >> it wasn't long before there were theoretical sightings of madeleine all over the world.

>> this investigation has not been short of tips. police have received hundreds. >> tantalizing frame of cctv footage has emerged from dunedin on the south island of new zealand. it shows a little girl with a striking resemblance to madeleine mccann. >> authorities say that they are looking at a picture of the little girl or a little girl that looks a lot like her. take a look for yourself. here's the photo. a spanish couple says they took it about a month ago while they were on vacation in morocco. >> there have been lots of sightings in morocco and in other countries, and no matter how well intentioned the people who reported them were, none of them, so far, have come to anything. >> three months after madeleine's disappearance, something occurred that no one saw coming. >> cadaver dogs can smell the smallest particles of blood. >> so they brought two dogs over, and were sent into the

apartment. >> portuguese media has been reporting blood traces found in the family's holiday apartment might indicate madeleine was killed there. >> its investigative significance is not at all yet clear. that blood is being tested in a laboratory in britain. >> this begged the question, were gerry and kate responsible for madeleine's disappearance? could she have actually died in the apartment and they tried to cover it up? >> we welcome you back now to a story that turned on a dime this morning, and it seems people all over the world are talking about it. >> police are focusing their attention on two suspects -- madeleine's mom and dad. whistles and boos greeted kate mccann as she entered a portuguese police station for a second straight day of questioning. >> kate and gerry, because of their suspect status being imposed on them, they thought it

best to go back to the uk. >> i flew back with kate and gerry yesterday. i was on there, on the plane that brought them back to england from portugal. kate was just looking out of the aircraft window and quietly sobbing. and you can just imagine the emotion for her coming back home without madeleine. >> but then, the blood samples that were sent to the lab came back. >> because those lab results were inconclusive, it led to the winding up of the police investigation. >> the mccanns were no longer suspects. why? because there was no evidence against them. >> at the lowest point, i thought our family was going to be destroyed. but ultimately, the overwhelming objective that we have is to find madeleine. >> despite all the rumors and reports, one fact remains painfully clear -- madeleine is still missing. >> i will never forget them

driving up to their home after being gone in portugal for months and looking at this throng of international media waiting outside their home. and the one thing they really stuck with me is that the front window of their home is filled with stuffies and children's toys. and it is just a reminder that just months ago, this was a house that was bursting with the energy of three children. and these parents are coming home without one of those three children. >> just after noon, the mccanns step in front of the cameras for the first time since sunday to take their twins to play at an undisclosed location. >> despite the mccanns being cleared as suspects, the innuendo about the family did not fade. >> every day, madeleine's picture was on the cover of tabloids. and the british people, half of

them thought, absolutely, they did it. and the other half thought, there's no way. >> eventually, the portuguese investigation came to an end without any conclusion. >> the portuguese police had looked into the leads, found nothing, and closed the file. >> i conducted cnn's first interview with kate and gerry mccann, and i will never forget it. it was haunting to see these two people, nearly a year later, still struggling with their daughter's disappearance. >> obviously there's been a lot written and a lot of criticism about us eating at the tapas restaurant and checking on the children as we did. i mean, and i've said many times, you know, there's a limit to how much you can be persecuted, but if there was a second of doubt in my head that i was placing my children at risk, it wouldn't have happened. >> the problem with that, and there's been a lot of focus on it, is you can't change it.

and if you dwell on "why didn't you do this," "why didn't i..." you know, "why didn't i stay in?" it would destroy you. >> one of the things that i remember most vividly is what happened after the interview. gerry got up and left the room, and kate went over to the window and just gazed out. and you could just see the unthinkable grief on her face. she just looked like the loneliest woman in the world, in that moment. >> things started to pour out, strange things. >> there was a very deep unknown reality in algarve. >> and it's frightening in retrospect when you hear that.

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a white-sand beach where you can see the sunrise? way better than whatever you were going to binge-watch this weekend. and you could be here in half the time. find me at hotels.com tuchman: despite kate and gerry mccann being ruled out as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, portuguese police coordinator gonçalo amaral despite kate and gerry mccann being ruled out as suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, portuguese police coordinator goncalo amaral insisted they were guilty. even publishing a book, accusing the couple of playing a role in their daughter's disappearance. by this time, amaral had been taken off the case after doing an interview accusing british authorities of protecting the mccanns. the accusations and litigation between the mccanns and amaral would continue for years. in 2009, the mccanns managed to have his book banned.

but in 2017, portugal's highest court upheld his right to freedom of expression and dismissed the couple's libel case against the former police coordinator. >> the girl with that special mark in her eye is still nowhere to be seen. >> we would like to say a few words to the person who is with madeleine or has been with madeleine, madeleine is a beautiful, bright, funny, and caring little girl. >> the mccanns must have been really desperate that the case would just go unsolved, and their daughter would be forgotten. >> we are determined to find madeleine, and we will do anything to do that. >> so they went after every single lead and every sort of help they could get. >> even before their arguidos status was lifted, kate and gerry were going outside traditional channels to find

their daughter. one way they tried was by going to private investigators. >> the first team of investigators that were hired were a spanish outfit from barcelona, metodo 3, who came with lots of promise. they were very experienced. >> the parents began learning information few knew about. it turns out that praia da luz and the algarve region was not the quiet little place that the mccanns thought they were going to when they went on vacation. >> cheer up, gerry, we're on holiday. >> there was a very deep, unknown reality in algarve that was hiding from the news. those years when madeleine disappeared, 2007, it was a place not only unsafe, but very dangerous. >> what the mccanns didn't know, and i think what almost any vacationer wouldn't have known in this very beautiful, quiet

resort area, is there had been a string of burglaries. >> things started to pour out, strange things, like guys that were knocking the doors around praia da luz asking for money for an orphanage. >> maybe four, maybe five, maybe six of them are going door to door asking, raising money for an orphanage. now, what's interesting is there's no orphanage in this area. >> and it's frightening in retrospect when you hear that, even more frightening that you wouldn't have known that. >> do you have any blame that you would attach to the resort itself? >> you can argue, well, maybe we should have known about burglaries, maybe that would have changed our behavior. >> and if you'd known there had been a number of burglaries there, that probably would have changed your thinking? >> it may have, but, you know, i don't i think it's constructive. and from our own point of view, we made the mistake, we felt safe, we didn't have a

heightened awareness, the resort was incredibly quiet. >> one tourist had said a guy had come to the door, and she chattered to him for a while, and he'd looked through and seen her child playing on the floor of the apartment. and she felt he'd a -- kind of had a quite an uncanny sort of look at her, quite fixated look at the child. and it concerns her. then we cut to the following day. the child was playing downstairs in the sitting room, and she came down the stairs and the door was open, and she saw someone fleeing. she's certain it was the same person that had been in there the day before. and she felt that person could have snatched her child very easily. >> you have to realize that algarve is the main touristic point in portugal. it's not good information for algarve to say abroad that it's not a safe place.

>> the level of criminality there was brushed under the carpet by the tourist board. >> in light of the new information about burglaries and possible scam artists, fresh questions were raised about the fate of madeleine mccann. >> well, there were lots of theories that were explored at various times. one was that she could have been the victim of human trafficking. >> the southern spain and southern portugal are heavily influenced by the drugs trade, people smuggling, people trafficking. >> you could get in a boat and go to africa, go to other parts of europe very quickly. >> it is remarkable how easy it is to move out of the algarve through spain into france. borders are not manned. there's lots of places that you can cross, and very quickly. >> now british police say they have new leads. >> i still genuinely believe that there is a possibility that

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♪ chang: her face is unmistakable -- the face of a missing child and heartbreaking mystery. her parents have worn the grief and anguish her face is unmistakable -- the face of a missing child and heartbreaking mystery. her parents have worn the grief and anguish on their faces day after day. >> we beg you to let madeleine come home. we need our madeleine. sean and amelie need madeleine, and madeleine needs us. please give our little girl back. >> despite the efforts of the private investigation, the

mccanns were no closer to finding out what happened to their daughter. >> i think, eventually, the mccanns just lost patience that no progress was being made and then cast around for better organizations that they thought might do more to find madeleine. and they really didn't have much luck. >> it seemed like the trail was going cold. with no one actively looking for their daughter, kate and gerry knew they had to do something to reignite the investigation. >> so about four years after their daughter disappeared, kate comes out with a book about her daughter, about the investigation. >> why have you done the book? >> i suppose there's always been the urge to get the truth out

there, obviously, when there's been so many stories written. but we've always had things to weigh up. i mean, ultimately, madeleine's fund was running out, and i knew that we'd need to raise money, really, to continue the search. >> they ultimately appealed to the then british prime minister, david cameron. and they touched a nerve. he understood that nothing officially was being done to find madeleine. and so he asked scotland yard to do a review of everything that had been done to date. >> now british police say they have new leads and are reopening the investigation called operation grange. >> they were starting from day one. >> the portuguese were very nervous because, with a fresh look on the evidence and on the investigation, many of the blunders that had been made, especially in the first 48 hours

of the investigation, were shown to the public. >> did not search streets near the hotel, did not interview all the hotel guests, didn't check video of vehicles leaving the resort, did not check motorway cams. >> these pictures of police on the spanish border are deeply worrying. the officers are supposed to be checking vehicles leaving portugal. instead, for 40 minutes they sit in their own cars out of the rain. >> given that there was nothing to go on, british investigators investigated everything from scratch and appealed to the public. >> we believe this is what madeleine would look like today as she approaches her 9th birthday next weekend. with regards to the age progression, if you have seen a little girl who looks like this, please contact the police immediately. please don't hesitate. >> one thing working in the family's favor was that law enforcement could build upon the

work that had already been done by the private investigators. >> all the information held by our private investigation team, everything has been handed over. >> british police say their help from private investigators has made a difference. >> this included a report of men accepting donations for an orphanage that apparently did not even exist. >> british police say portuguese burglars operating a bogus charity may have been linked with a string of robberies in the area at the time. >> 17 days before madeleine went missing, there were two separate break-ins near the apartments where the mccanns were staying on holiday. >> one of the very strong theories that scotland yard pursued was the idea that somebody had been breaking into the apartment, madeleine had woken up, and the burglar, for some reason, had decided to leave but take madeleine with him.

>> and the fact that the mccanns and their friends spent each evening at the tapas bar may have made them a target. >> reservations were made for them every evening. >> they block-booked a table, the same table by the pool, within the holiday complex. and they kept to a pretty rigid timetable. they would eat, more or less, at the same time each night. >> and, of course, the maitre d' would've been, like, "great, okay," reservation book, scribble at the top, you know, "the mccanns and friends will eat every night at this table." >> there's a belief that maybe the abductor or the person who took her saw that note, knew she was sleeping back there. >> operation grange was spending a lot of money, trying to do all the efforts to find madeleine. >> there are lots of opportunities, lots of new leads, and new information crucially emerging, which will be incredibly useful for taking us forward.

>> and after 16 visits to portugal and reviewing more than 30,000 documents, police are hopeful. >> there is no clear, definitive proof that madeleine mccann is dead. and so, on that basis, i still genuinely believe that there is a possibility that she's alive. >> praia de luz, a beach resort town in portugal, now partially cordoned off as british police dig in the wasteland. >> investigators are using sniffer dogs and ground penetrating radar that can detect disturbed earth. starting with the sound system... curry from deep. [autotune] that's caaaaaaaaash. i prefer the old intro! this is much better! i don't think so! steph, one more thing... the team owner gets five minutes a game. cash bros? wooooo, i like it! i'll break it to klay. cashback like a pro with chase freedom unlimited. how do you cashback? chase, make more of what's yours.

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welcome back to "how it really happened." when scotland yard launched operation grange, investigators were hopeful. welcome back to "how it really happened." when scotland yard launched operation grange, investigators were hopeful. could the disappearance of madeleine mccann finally be solved? the new information seems promising, but there's so much more that remains unanswered. >> there's been a number of cases over the last few years of children and young women being found after having been taken and held for very long periods of time. so we've always had hope, and as parents, we wouldn't accept madeleine is dead until we see evidence, clear evidence, that that is the case. >> investigators from operation grange interviewed people all over praia da luz, and they discovered some very interesting details.

>> there was a good deal of information about strange men, for want of a better word, who were seen hanging around the mccanns' apartments in the days before she disappeared, on the day she disappeared. >> there are two witnesses who say, independently of one another, that they saw what they described as a very ugly, pockmarked or spotty-skinned man watching apartment 5a. >> another witness reported having seen suspicious men on a balcony near the mccanns' apartment just hours before madeleine disappeared. >> one of the strong theories that emerged was based on a series of incidents over several years, in various resorts, of men who were seemingly targeting young children, particularly young daughters of british families.

>> police have identified a series of 12 potentially linked crimes that took place between 2004 and 2010 in the western algarve area of portugal. in four of the cases, little girls between the ages of 7 and 10 were sexually assaulted in their beds while their parents were home. >> this all happened just a few kilometers away from where their then 3-year-old was last seen. >> now, police are trying to find the suspect who they described as having tan skin, short, dark, unkempt hair, he spoke english with a foreign accent. >> we need to be able to prove or disprove whether these offenses and that offender is connected to the disappearance of madeleine mccann. >> in all of those cases that have been reported, no child had been abducted. but sexual predators often up the level of their offending. and it's quite feasible that somebody who started by going

into an apartment to sexually attack a child might, to get a bigger thrill, decide that one day he was going to steal a child. scotland yard, for a while, focused very much on that idea. >> while scotland yard was revisiting the case, the portuguese investigation remained shelved. >> given the large amount of investigative opportunities and the new information that has recently come to light, we hope that madeleine's case is formally reopened in portugal in the near future. >> and sure enough, in october 2013, the portuguese authorities reopen their investigation. >> both forces started looking back at what they'd done and looking for opportunities to continue the investigation. >> after seven years searching for madeleine mccann, this is the area of portuguese scrubland now being scoured for any trace.

>> whenever a new trace came up or something that was regarded as a new trace by operation grange, a new surge would pop up. this news would come up they were searching another field, they were searching the area again. >> british and portuguese investigators are using sniffer dogs and ground penetrating radar that can detect disturbed earth. >> i know from the very beginning that people had said, in portugal, "if i wanted to make a kid disappear around here, i'd throw them in a well, because every second house has a well in the backyard." >> praia de luz, a beach resort town in portugal, now partially cordoned off as british police dig in the wasteland. >> so, whenever there was a search, there must have been something they thought might take us further. they were searching another well, they were searching another piece of forest.

>> media reports at least two other locations in the area may also be searched in a renewed effort to discover the toddler's whereabouts. >> but again, it didn't throw up what police hoped they would find. >> three days of searching by radar, by dog, and by dig -- still no sign of madeleine mccann's body along the portuguese coastline. but that's not surprising after so long. >> it is ridiculous -- after seven years, to come back here to dig and to ask questions? they are only ruining tourism. it is ridiculous. >> operation grange cost more than 13 million dollars, and still, after spending the money, all that time, all these investigators, they really haven't found out anything. >> a lot of people were criticizing the millions of pounds spent on this investigation. the investigation clearly hadn't achieved the results that they'd hoped for. they were nowhere nearer finding out the explanation for her

disappearance than they were when they started. >> despite the monumental effort in trying to find madeleine, hope was dwindling once again. >> now there's a new suspect in her disappearance. >> there was a person, there was a face, there is a profile. >> madeleine mccann has been meet the team... behind the team. the coach. the manager. and the snack dad. all using chase to keep up with their finances. the coach helps save goals here,

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soares: madeleine mccann has been gone for 13 years, the little blond girl with blue-green eyes. chang: i think the strangest part of the case is that there was never any real evidence -- madeleine mccann has been gone for 13 years, the little blond girl with blue-green eyes. >> i think the strangest part of the case is that there was never any real evidence -- no dna, no blood, no trace, no nothing. and it's just hard to believe that someone could cover their tracks so expertly. >> i thought the case would never be solved. it had been so long since madeleine disappeared. >> but then, in 2020, something very significant happened. german authorities say they have someone who's in prison on another crime who they believe might be the person responsible

for the disappearance of madeleine mccann. >> now there's a new suspect in her disappearance. he's a german pedophile, authorities say, a 43-year-old man who is currently serving a long jail sentence. >> now there was a person, there was a face, there is a profile. >> cnn has confirmed his name to be christian b. prosecutors say the suspect lived in this house in praia da luz, portugal, at the time that then 3-year-old madeleine mccann disappeared from this tourist resort in 2007. >> journalists learned the suspect's full name was christian brueckner. investigators theorized he was closely watching visitors who came to the area, hoping for criminal opportunities that might arise while their defenses were down. >> he's a deeply, deeply troubling man, a very dangerous individual that we only really know probably around a fraction of his crimes that he's

committed. >> one percent of all human beings are what we call psychopath. and i see many of those traits in christian b. -- no empathy, no deep feelings, and no conscience, having a very strong desire for power. he lives a nomadic lifestyle in all aspects. so he basically moves from one place to another. he moves from one relationship to another. he moves from one job to another. and also from one crime to another. there is a connection between christian b. and the ocean club, and there was some evidence that he knew that area quite well. >> and he rented a small house just in the hills outside praia de luz, looking down on the village. he was just living on his wits, really. i think he cleaned some pools. there's people who suggest he might have even cleaned inside the ocean club and knew the ocean club quite well.

>> others say that, even when madeleine disappeared, he was going in and out because he knew people working there. by the time madeleine disappeared, he had become a full-time criminal -- breaking into apartments, stealing things. >> there is one aspect which is interesting. he committed a lot of crimes in germany, and whenever he got in trouble with law enforcement in germany, he went to portugal. and then he committed a lot of crimes in portugal, and whenever he got in trouble, he came back to germany. >> just two years before madeleine went missing, a 72-year-old woman was raped in praia da luz. >> now, what happened the night in question was that she was in the house and in came this assailant who set up a camera, carefully, filmed everything he did. >> a friend of brueckner back in the day and another friend broke into brueckner's apartment to steal valuables. so you're getting an idea of

their friendship, right? and they stole a video camera and a couple of other things. and this witness claims that they watched the tapes that were taken by the video camera. >> eventually, some of brueckner's acquaintances turned it in to the police. >> there's this hair that was found in the house of the victim. now, it was analyzed in germany, and they got to the conclusion that the dna is from christian brueckner. this led to christian brueckner being tried for rape and being sentenced to seven years. >> he began serving his time in 2019, but german investigators were curious about what else he'd done. >> they believe christian b. has harmed more people, theprosecutor tells me. according to the information available to us, it is almost certain that there will be further victims, he says. >> and as they looked into his

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♪ tuchman: german authorities say christian brueckner lived under the radar in praia da luz. but in 2019, after he went to prison for the rape of an elderly american woman, german authorities say christian bruckner lived under the radar. but in 2019, after he went to prison for the rape of an elderly american woman, they began discovering more disturbing details about him. >> his name popped up when one

of his former friends said that christian bruckner had confessed to killing madeline mccann. this witness used to hang out with bruckner in the days of ma maddie's disappearance. this man alerted police and said tial i know something about the madeline mccann case. >> news reports claim as police probed further, they discovered more indications he might have hurt madeline. >> play yeah dlunlg, the portuguese resort from where madeline mccann disappeared. the man authorities think murdered her lived in this house less than a mile away at the time. >> police raided this house. and amongst the things they found in his laptop were various chats talking openly about snatching something small, trapping it, keeping it for days, and abusing it. >> cell phone tracking puts him

near the crime scene the night maddie disappeared. and this, of course, is a very interesting circumstantial piece of evidence. >> once you have taken this opportunity, once you have committed this crime, you will have to finally decide what to do with the child you have taken. then you must either bring it back or kill it and dispose of it. >> what makes you so certain that madeline mccann is dead? >> we have some evidence for this. we have no forensic evidence, but we have other evidence. but i'm not allowed to speak about this in detail at the moment. >> is that strong evidence? >> i think it's strong. >> you wouldn't come out and say that madeline mccann was dead if you thought there was a chance that she wasn't, correct? >> yes. >> at the time madeline mccann disappeared, christian bruckner was driving a dark red jaguar with german number plates. and for some reason that i'm not

really clear, he re-registered the car the day after madeline mccann disappeared. he asked a friend back in germany to go to the office and have the car re-registered. what the motive for that is, we don't know. >> if a vehicle is involved in the crime, it's a very good idea to get rid of any kind of evidence. >> prosecutors say christian b. also bought this abandoned factory about 100 miles away. police conducted several searches here in the past years. as you can see, there's still a lot of stuff laying around here, but the authorities say that it wasn't until they started digging on this property that they found several data carriers with lots of pornographic material, including child porn, on them. the local prosecutor also says that children's bathing suits were found on the premises.

>> he sent a couple of letters to media outlets. he pretty much said, you are after the wrong person, i am not guilty. >> bruckner says he was somewhere else on the night that madeline disappeared. but in april 2022, portuguese authorities declared bruckner an arguido in madeline's disappearance. >> how sure are you that you have named the right man? >> at the moment, we think we have the right person. he's our only suspect in this case. we found some things. i can't speak about this in detail at the moment. >> like other arguidos, though, bruckner had yet to be charged with any crime in the madeline mccann case. >> in may 2022, bruckner's lawyer said that the prosecution had not released any evidence that it supposedly had. and reiterated that bruckner denies any involvement in the crime.

>> but it's obvious mr. bruckner is a horrible man, okay? he's raped a woman. he is a child molester. we know these things. has he attacked madeline? did he capture her? did he hide her? did he kill her? we don't know. >> in a statement, the mccanns added that even though the possibility is slim, they still hoped madeline was alive and that they would see her again. madeline would legally be an adult today. there have been different suspects, different theories, different types of investigations. but still, there's that one piece of evidence -- forensic, physical, just ideas. just a horrifying mystery. it's likely she's dead.

but we haven't confirmed it. and that's why the interest in this case endures. >> oh, yes, i can see your wings. oh, yes, one more. big smile. >> i think a lot of good's come from the case. the mccanns should be very, very proud of the awareness they've raised to the very thorny issue of child sex trafficking. ♪ clap your hands together at one two three ♪ >> they said, this is not about our child, this is about any children that have gone missing. >> we don't know exactly how this is going to end. one thing we do know for sure is that jerry and kate mccann will never stop looking for their daughter. >> do you ever think, how long can we do this? when do we stop? >> you have moments where you feel absolutely exhausted. and you just think, you know --

i can't do this anymore. but you can't give up. who would ever give up on their child? >> the world is a different place than when madeline mccann disappeared. technology has advanced. awareness has been raised. but there's still so much we don't know about the case. like the mccanns, we continue to hold out hope. i'm jesse el martin. thanks for watching. good night. ♪