Madeleine McCann suspects Christian Brueckner was just 15 when he committed his first crime: a burglary that would send him into a downward spiral into pedophiles, rape and drug dealing.
Born Christian Fischer in Dettlebach near Würzburg in Bavaria, southern Germany, he was adopted by Brigitte and Fritz Brueckner, who would regularly punish him and his two brothers.
He was given up by his biological mother – who lived above an inn in the village – because she could not cope and preferred the company of petty criminals to her own son.
A family friend of his adoptive parents said: ‘They were really cold; they were only interested in money. The dachshund was treated better than the children.
“Once she hit his head on the table. Another time he wet himself.
“His father pulled down his pants and hit him with his belt. When the boy started to cry, his father said, “If you cry, you’ll get some more.”
Christian Brueckner arrives at the Landgericht Braunschweig state court on October 7, 2024 for one of the last days of his trial for sex crimes
Brueckner led a nomadic existence while in the Algarve, living in a camper most of the time
Brueckner was born in the Bavarian city of Würzburg in 1976 and was placed in a foster family (11 years old in the photo)
A former neighbor told German media: ‘Even as small children the boys were hit and shouted at, Brigitte always said that children should be strictly disciplined.’
They revealed how Brueckner and his brother were locked in dark rooms and allowed to drink only at set times.
The neighbor added: ‘They (foster parents) were heartless and cold. Taking in the children was just a business deal for them.
‘They spoiled their beloved dachshund, but repeatedly told the boys who they were, sons of a thug and a whore.’
When teachers asked how the boys were covered in bruises, neighbors said they “fell down the stairs.”
In 1994, two years after his burglary conviction, Brueckner’s adoptive parents placed him in a children’s home after Fritz was seriously injured in an accident.
And there he was found guilty of his first sex crime, abusing a child at home at the age of 17.
He followed her into a bush, held her by the upper arm, pulled his penis out of his pants, lifted the six-year-old’s skirt and grabbed her between the legs.
The girl screamed and Brueckner fled, later assaulting a nine-year-old child.
He was sentenced to two years in prison for ‘sexual abuse of a child, attempted sexual abuse of a child and performing sexual acts in the presence of a child’.
But soon afterwards he traveled to Portugal, where he found work in hotels and garages before eventually being tracked down by police and extradited to Germany.
Madeleine McCann suspects Christian Brueckner was only 15 when he committed his first crime
After serving his sentence he returned to Portugal and in 2004 he allegedly raped Irish tour guide Hazel Behan in her apartment in Praia da Rocha on the Algarve coast – close to where Madeleine disappeared three years later.
A year later he raped an American woman, 72-year-old Diana Menkes, who lived in the Algarve and has since died.
Hazel Behan (pictured) has spoken publicly about the alleged 2004 attack in TV interviews
She was bound, gagged, blindfolded and beaten before being raped by Brueckner, who was only convicted in 2019 after DNA linked him to the attack and he was jailed for seven years.
In April 2007 – just before three-year-old Madeleine disappeared and not far from the apartment where she was staying – he allegedly exposed himself to a ten-year-old girl.
Brueckner then left Portugal and was a fixture at hippie festivals on the Costa del Sol, with his signature American-style Winnebago camper making him stand out.
With this he made regular trips back to Germany to bring drugs back and forth and in 2011 he was finally convicted of dealing.
After his release, he continued to fly between Germany and Portugal and is said to have exposed himself to children at a festival there in 2017.
Christian Brueckner was pictured pulling up in a prison van outside the courtroom in Brunswick, Lower Saxony, at the start of his trial.
The same year, while back in Germany, he was arrested and convicted of ‘sexual abuse of a child’ and sentenced to 15 months in prison.
After his release, he traveled to Italy, where he was held in Milan before being returned to Germany again on drug trafficking charges.
And while there, in 2019 he was charged and tried for the rape of Ms Menkes and at the same time he was also re-convicted of drug trafficking and given 21 months.
His current sentence expires in September 2025.