Accused Stalker Questioned: 'However Suppose I Might Be Madeleine?'
A woman accused with stalking Kate McCann allegedly left her a phone message which posed: "what if I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, 24, who a jury heard has persistently claimed she was the missing Madeleine McCann, and her co-defendant are on trial charged with harassing Kate and Gerry McCann between June 2022 and February 2025.
On Monday, Leicester Crown Court heard communication data and information retrieved from phones documented Ms Wandelt consistently demanding Madeleine's mother for a DNA test throughout 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's case in 2007 - when she was three years old during a family holiday in Portugal - is among the most widely reported missing child cases and continues to be unsolved.
'I Do Not Need Money'
A separate voicemail, played in court, recorded Ms Wandelt stating: "I realize I'm overweight and not pretty like Madeleine used to be, but I know what I believe."
While another instance of Ms Wandelt's monologues with Mrs McCann's answerphone said: "Imagine there is a slight possibility that I am Madeleine? What then? Wouldn't that be important for you?"
"I do not need money, I have a life here in Poland, I only wish to discover," the recording stated.
The panel was informed that by means of electronic messages, text messages and calls, Ms Wandelt asked for a genetic test, transmitted childhood photos to her phone in a bid to show a similarity to Mrs McCann's vanished daughter, and stated to have "flashbacks" from a youth with the McCanns.
Robert Jones, an intelligence analyst with the police force who collated the data, told the court there "didn't appear to be any answers" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt furthermore reached out to 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."
During that incident Ms Wandelt left a message on Mrs McCann's recording stating "I won't give up and I intend to demonstrate my position."
The court learned Mrs Spragg developed a association online with Ms Wandelt preceding joining her on a visit to the McCanns' home in the county in last December.
Phone records showed Mrs Spragg had reached out via messaging service to Mrs McCann to express the press had depicted Ms Wandelt as "mentally unstable" but that she ought to be treated respectfully in the months before the trip to the village, Leicestershire, in that winter.
The court learned correspondence between the two accused, in that autumn, considering attempting to get Mrs McCann's biological evidence from her trash or from silverware at a restaurant.
"We need to make a stand," the co-defendant informed Ms Wandelt.
On the occasion of the visit to their house, the defendant dispatched a text which expressed: "We find ourselves sat adjacent to the McCanns' residence with our headlights off similar to detectives. I desired to accomplish this with Peter Andrew I didn't imagine I would be engaged in this with the McCanns."
The trial ongoing.
