Christian Brueckner, who is currently standing trial for unrelated rape and indecent exposure in front of children charges, reportedly confessed to his cellmate Laurentiu Codin.
“He told me that in Portugal, he had stolen there,” Codin told Braunschweig Regional Court.
“He was in an area of hotels where rich people live ... and when he went to the hotel area, there was an open window somewhere, he told me. And he would have entered this window for money and gold.
“However, he did not find any money but came across a child and took it with him.
“He drove off in the car, and he was gone. He asked me if the DNA from a child could be taken from bones under the ground.”
Brueckner is already serving a seven-year sentence in Germany after being convicted of rape in Portugal in 2005.
In June 2020, Portuguese police said McCann, who went missing from her holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in 2007, is presumed dead and Brueckner most likely took her, although no charges have ever been laid.
