Cops investigate if Madeleine McCann prime suspect is linked to 1996 rape and murder of girl, 11
DETECTIVES are investigating if the prime suspect in the Madeleine McCann case is linked to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl in 1996, it's reported.
Claudia Ruf was sexually assaulted and killed and her partially burned body found about 40 miles from the German town of Grevenbroich.
She had been kidnapped while walking a neighbour's dog.
Cops are now probing to see if there's anything linking Christian B, 43, the main suspect in Madeleine's 2007 disappearance, to Claudia's murder, German newspaper reports.
A spokesman for Bonn police said it was a routine process and unsolved crimes against children in Germany would now be checked for any connection, according to Bild.
Robert Scholten, first police chief commissioner at Bonn police station, told Cologne newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (KStA): "We asked the Federal Criminal Police Office for information.
"We will continue to do everything possible to solve the murder of Claudia Ruf."
POLICE PROFILE
But he said there was "no concrete evidence" Christian B may have something to do with Claudia's murder.
According to Scholten, police will try to piece together a profile to clarify where Christian B was when Claudia disappeared.
Last year, police in Grevenbroich started DNA tests on hundreds of men as they hoped for a breakthrough in the unsolved murder investigation.
Cops tested 350 DNA samples in 2010, but were unable to solve the case.
CHILDREN'S SWIMWEAR
Christian B has denied killing Madeleine McCann to his lawyer, it has emerged today.
His lawyer Friedrich Fulscher said his client “denies any involvement” in the McCann case.
Police are probing a number of other cases of missing or murdered children.
Dutch police are working with German authorities to determine whether Christian B was linked to the disappearance of Jaïr Soares, who went missing in August 1995.
Police in The Hague said they were going to "exchange information" about the suspect with German cops.
German detectives investigating Christian B have contacted the family of missing René Hasee to say they were looking into his 1996 disappearance again.
René vanished aged six on June 21, 1996 while on holiday with his family in Aljezur - just 25 miles from Praia da Luz, in the Algarve.
And police in Bayreuth, near Nuremberg, announced that Christian B is "under investigation" in the case of another girl who disappeared on May 7 2001 on her way home from school.
Partial remains of Peggy Knobloch were discovered in the Thuringian Forest on July 2 2016.
In order not to be recognised where there were cameras, he took off his clothes and put on diving goggles.
Pal of Christian B
He is also being re-investigated over the disappearance of a girl dubbed the 'German Maddie'.
Christian B was reported to be in the same area as five-year-old Inga Gehricke when she vanished in May 2015.
It comes as German prosecutors insisted last night that a letter telling Kate and Gerry McCann that Madeleine is dead was on its way after the couple revealed they hadn’t received it.
Hans Christian Wolters said on Monday the heartbreaking letter would tell the McCanns that German police have evidence Madeleine has been murdered by Christian B, 43.
Meanwhile, Christian B kept kids’ clothes and swimwear in his mobile home, it emerged yesterday.
The convicted paedophile bought the red and white Allegro Bay RV in early 2010 — three years after moving back to his native Germany from Portugal.
Pals said he used it to drive regularly back and forth between Germany, Spain and Portugal and once boasted how he could “carry children and drugs” inside.
Cops found the clothes and swimwear after seizing the RV as part of their probe into missing Inga Gehricke, who disappeared in 2015 during a picnic with her parents.
Christian B used a derelict crate factory at Neuwegersleben as a weekend pad where he kept the RV. The items were found there in 2016 along with USB sticks containing images of child sex abuse.
Other images on the sticks included some of Christian B partially naked or wearing stockings performing a solo sex act, as well as others too graphic to describe here.
The six data sticks and two memory cards were found buried under the body of his dog at the factory, wrapped in a carrier bag.
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The warped revelations came in a documentary broadcast by Spiegel TV and included a pal identified only as Bjorn R, who revealed Christian B’s bizarre behaviour while he lived in Portugal.
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He said: “Alcohol sometimes loosened his tongue. He said that he was in Portugal and he got in everywhere and stole cameras.
“In order not to be recognised where there were cameras, he took off his clothes and put on diving goggles so he wouldn’t be recognised.”
