Suspected Harasser Inquired: 'However Imagine I Am Madeleine?'
A woman accused with harassing Kate McCann apparently recorded her a phone message which posed: "what if I am Madeleine?"
Julia Wandelt, 24, who a jury heard has persistently asserted she was the disappeared Madeleine McCann, and her co-defendant are standing trial charged with harassing Kate and Gerry McCann from June 2022 and February 2025.
On Monday, Leicester Crown Court was told call records and data obtained from phones logged Ms Wandelt persistently requesting Madeleine's mother for a genetic test over 2023 and 2024.
Madeleine's case in 2007 - as a three-year-old during a vacation in Portugal - is one of the most covered missing child cases and is still unresolved.
'I Do Not Need Money'
One voicemail, presented in court, recorded Ms Wandelt saying: "I know I'm overweight and not pretty like Madeleine was, but I feel what I feel."
While another instance of Ms Wandelt's monologues with Mrs McCann's answerphone expressed: "What if there is a small chance that I am Madeleine? What happens next? Is that not significant for you?"
"I do not need money, I possess a life here in Poland, I just want to know," the message continued.
The jury was told that via electronic messages, mobile messages and phone calls, Ms Wandelt requested a genetic test, sent childhood photos to her phone in a effort to show a similarity to Mrs McCann's missing daughter, and asserted to have "flashbacks" from a early life with the McCanns.
An intelligence analyst, an investigator with the police force who compiled the data, advised the court there "seemed to lack any responses" from Mrs McCann.
Ms Wandelt furthermore reached out to close associates of the McCanns, based on the phone records.
On that date, Mr McCann responded to a communication from Ms Wandelt to his wife's phone, saying she had "incorrect contact information."
During that incident Ms Wandelt deposited a message on Mrs McCann's voicemail saying "I won't give up and I will prove my position."
The court learned the co-defendant struck up a connection through digital means with Ms Wandelt prior to joining her on a appearance to the McCanns' home in that area in that winter.
Phone records demonstrated Mrs Spragg had communicated via WhatsApp to Mrs McCann to state the press had depicted Ms Wandelt as "mentally unstable" but that she deserved to be considered genuine in the months preceding the visit to that location, Leicestershire, in that winter.
The court heard correspondence between the two individuals, in last November, planning attempting to obtain Mrs McCann's DNA samples from her trash or from cutlery at a restaurant.
"We need to take action," the co-defendant informed Ms Wandelt.
On the evening of the visit to their house, Mrs Spragg dispatched a communication which said: "We find ourselves sitting near the McCanns' house with our headlights off resembling detectives. I desired to accomplish this with someone else I didn't imagine I would be involved in this with the McCanns."
The proceedings ongoing.