A Polish woman claiming to be missing British toddler Madeleine McCann has released her latest set of DNA test results.
Julia Wandelt, 23, became an internet sensation in February 2023 when she posted to Instagram under the account name ‘@IAmMadeleineMcCann’ claiming to be the missing daughter of Kate and Gerry McCann.
Also known as Julia Wendell, the 23-year-old ended up on American talk show ‘Dr Phil’ to discuss the far-fetched possibility before later apologising and saying she ‘regretted’ the entire ordeal in an interview with the BBC last year.
But now, Ms Wandelt has taken to her new social media account, ‘@AmIJuliaWandelt’, to share the ‘results’ of a fresh DNA test that she said Kate and Gerry ‘refused’ to participate in.
The results, she said, were submitted to a ‘world expert’ who compared them to the crime scene following Madeleine McCann’s 2007 disappearance in Portugal.
Ms Wandelt alleges they also compared eyes, teeth and voice with the toddler, who at just 3-years-old, went missing from her bed in a holiday apartment in Lagos on the evening of May 3, nearly 18 years ago.
In her numerous posts to the platform last week, the 23-year-old said her ‘source’ believes the genetic evidence ‘strongly supports that Gerry McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father’.
Supported by ‘experts’ in the analysis field, Ms Wandelt posted the first part of the DNA results which had proven her to be ‘part British and part Irish’, and not 100 per cent Polish.
This particular announcement refutes the claims previously made by private investigator Dr Fia Johnsson, who in 2023 shared Ms Wandelt’s DNA results that said she was, in fact, fully Polish.
The 23-year-old said she had previously been ‘struggling to understand’ those results from almost two years ago, and said Dr Johansson was not telling the truth – which the investigator categorically denied.
Meanwhile, ‘part two’ of the DNA results, which were analysed by the ‘highly respected and recognised world expert’ Dr Monte Miller and shared by Ms Wendelt.
After interpreting the DNA, Miller, who has a PhD in Biochemistry from Loma Linda University in California delivered an update to Ms Wendelt, who previously described herself as a ‘fantasist’.
Miller’s email to the 23-year-old read: ‘The simple answer is that the suspect is not the source of the DNA on the evidence, because their DNA is not fully established everywhere.
‘However, they do match fairly well, more than I would expect at random, and a specific pattern emerges that look like an almost certain family connection’.
The final analysis of the DNA results led to the most explosive claims in the three-part posts, with Ms Wendelt’s source making a ‘perfect match’ with her DNA to the samples taken from the scene of the toddler’s disappearance.
The source, who allegedly wishes to remain anonymous, is said to have analysed ‘hair obtained from the floor of the crime scene in Portugal’, as well as ‘saliva obtained from the bed quilt at the scene’.
After cross-referencing, the source said the results showed a 69.23 per cent match, ‘suggesting a biological connection between the two individuals’.
They also said Ms Wandelt’s DNA can be fully linked as ‘being inherited from the father’s profile’, said to be from Gerry McCann’s DNA sample.
They concluded by saying: ‘The genetic evidence strongly supports that McCann could be Julia Wandelt’s biological father, as the data aligns perfectly with a parent-child relationship.
‘If this analysis is accurate and properly derived from their DNA samples, the relationship between McCann and Julia Wandelt is biologically consistent with that of a father and daughter’.
Ms Wendelt previously told the BBC’s disinformation and social media correspondent, Marianna Spring, how she was sexually abused as a young child, and said she first started believing she was Madeleine McCann after seeing resemblances between sketches of suspects and her abuser.
The 23-year-old claimed this led to her suffering from gaps in her memory which led her to become suspicious about her upbringing after her parents dismissed questions on whether she was adopted.
Ms Wendelt also said she was never shown photos of herself in her early years or a birth certificate, but her parents had quickly refuted this and provided evidence.
They said in a statement: ‘For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin and step niece. We have memories, we have pictures.
‘Julia also has these photos, because she took them from the family home with the birth certificate, as well as numerous hospital discharges.
‘We always tried to understand all situations that happened with Julia. Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet…we’ve seen it all and we’ve tried to prevent it, explain it, we’ve asked her to stop.’