Police searching a reservoir in Portugal in connection with the disappearance of Madeleine McCann cleared a large swath of forest where they dug eight deep holes to remove samples.
After three days of intense searches came to an end, the police cordon was lifted to reveal a bizarre landscape marked by deep and concentrated digging.
Agents had focused on a 10-by-18-foot patch of woodland about 100 feet above the waterline of the Arade Dam, where the prime suspect was believed to have spent time in the days after the three-year-old British girl went missing in May 2007.
The bushes and trees had been cut down and rusting deckchairs, chairs and a sea buoy had been moved aside before forensic excavations began.
Christian Brueckner, a 45-year-old convicted pedophile and rapist, is said to have boasted that the remote and remote location above Barragem do Arade, in the Algarve, was his “little paradise.”
He has denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance.
The very specific targeting of promontory locations raises the possibility that German police had brought their source to the scene to determine exactly where Brueckner had gone.
Officers from Germany and Portugal had removed a large amount of topsoil to create a shelf where deeper excavations were carried out.
Eight carefully excavated holes, up to 30 cm wide and nearly 60 cm deep, had been drilled into the ground and the earth had been bagged and removed. Some of the remaining soil contained burnt and blackened bits of wood.
The focus of the searches suggests agents had used ground penetrating radar and metal detectors to target specific locations. Similar holes had been dug across the cape, some clustered around recent fire pits.
It is feared that samples excavated from the reservoir will take weeks to be analyzed.
Detectives removed numerous bags that were in two vans en route to a forensics lab in Germany over 2,000 miles on Thursday night.
A Portuguese police statement said the three-day search had resulted in “the collection of material that will be subject to expert analysis” in Germany.
Christian Wolters, a prosecutor involved in the German side of the investigation, said a statement will be issued soon if nothing of significance is discovered. But if the samples proved relevant, a public announcement would be delayed for weeks.
He said: “Of course we are still looking for the body. Of course, we’re not just looking for that. There are also other things. Any clothing discovery can help our research.”
Correio da Manha, a Portuguese newspaper, claimed that a “relevant clue” – or “trail” – was discovered after police photographed a location near the dam.
However, it was unclear whether this was related to Madeleine, as sources close to the German investigation suggested they believed the site could be linked to other victims.
The numerous excavations on the headland have raised the possibility that police believed Brueckner may even have hidden an electronic storage device containing images, possibly taken from some of his victims, at the site.
Brueckner was believed to have a habit of filming some of his sexual crimes and keeping them on storage devices.
German police allegedly found photos he took at the remote dam on a USB stick hidden in a derelict factory he owns in Germany.
But Goncalo Amaral, the former inspector who conducted part of the original investigation in 2007, expressed disdain for the searches, claiming Brueckner was a “scapegoat” and no new evidence had been discovered.
In an interview with Sabado, another Portuguese news outlet, he questioned why the house searches had been carried out, particularly 16 years after Madeleine’s disappearance.
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