Madeleine McCann’s sister describes ‘creepy’ messages from alleged stalker

Kate and Gerry McCann pose for the media with a missing poster depicting an age progression computer generated image of their still missing daughter Madeleine during a news conference in London, May 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Sang Tan)

The sister of missing British girl Madeleine McCann told a U.K. jury Thursday she found messages from a woman accused of stalking the family and claiming to be her lost older sibling “creepy”.

Amelie McCann, who was a toddler when three-year-old Madeleine disappeared from the family’s holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007, said Julia Wandelt began messaging her on social media in early 2024.

Some of the messages mentioned hypnosis sessions and offered to tell Amelie her “memories”, prosecutor Nadia Silver said.

Wandelt repeated requests for Amelie’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, to take a DNA test to confirm her belief that they were related.

Amelie said she always knew that Wandelt was not Madeleine but that it was “quite creepy that she’s giving those details” and playing with “my emotions and my memories”.

Wandelt and Karen Spragg, 61, from Cardiff in Wales, are on trial accused of stalking causing serious alarm and distress to Kate and Gerry McCann. They each deny the charge.

Prosecutors said earlier there was “unequivocal scientific evidence” that Wandelt, who has claimed to have recollections about Madeleine’s childhood and disappearance, did not have any familial link to the McCanns.

Amelie, giving testimony in a calm soft-spoken manner, described the messaging on multiple platforms including Facebook as “quite persistent”.

Giving evidence via video-link at Leicester Court in central England, she said she blocked Wandelt on some social media but the woman continued to try to establish contact through a letter posted to her.

In the letter, Wandelt told Amelie she was her “last hope” of proving that she was Madeleine. It also included pictures of “me and her”, she said.

“She clearly altered or edited the pictures to make it look more like her, which is quite disturbing.”

‘Strange and upsetting’

Wandelt, who appeared tearful as court proceedings ended for the day Thursday, allegedly bombarded the McCanns with emails, messages and calls between June 2022 and February 2025.

At one point, she called Kate McCann 60 times in a single day, the prosecution said.

“All the time her phone would be going off and it would be Julia. It’s upsetting when someone’s begging you to believe them and playing with your emotions to the point you are questioning yourself and doubting yourself,” Amelie said.

“My mum really struggled with that -– her saying ‘I’m your daughter’,” she added.

In a written statement Amelie’s twin brother Sean added he found Wandelt’s efforts to contact him and his parents, who are both doctors, “strange and upsetting”.

“I do not believe she is my sister,” he said.

On Wednesday, Kate McCann also told the court she had been left distressed after Wandelt turned up at the family home in the dark.

“She called me mum ... she was asking for a DNA test, ‘why won’t you do a DNA test?’ and pleading with me,” she said.

She followed her and tried to “put her hands out to stop me closing the door”, she added.

After Kate McCann finished giving evidence on Wednesday, Wandelt sobbed loudly and shouted “why are you doing this to me?” before being escorted out of the dock in tears by prison officers.

The unsolved case of Madeleine’s disappearance from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz was thrust back into the spotlight last month after the top suspect was released from a German prison.

Christian Brueckner -- who had finished a seven-year jail term for rape -- was not charged in the case because of a lack of evidence, even though in 2020 German prosecutors named him as their top suspect.