A woman claiming to be Madeleine McCann recalled the night she was “abducted” in voicemails to the missing girl’s mother, a court has heard. Julia Wandelt, 24, from Lubin in south-west Poland, claimed to remember Kate McCann telling her she “loved me and would find me” on the night the child went missing in 2007.
Wandelt denies stalking Mrs McCann and her husband, Gerry McCann, between June 2022 and February this year. Leicester Crown Court on Monday heard recordings of Wandelt audibly upset, as she left voice messages to Mrs McCann last year over a period of months, at one point asking: “What if I’m her?”. Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve, Portugal, in May 2007, aged three-years-old.
Wandelt left numerous messages detailing claims of why she thought she was Madeleine.
“I remember how you hugged me,” Wandelt said about the night Madeleine went missing.
“I remember how you came to the room before [the] abduction happened, rubbing my head, saying you loved me and you would find me. I beg you to call me.”
Prosecutors allege the Polish national peddled the “myth” that she was Madeleine while stalking her parents by sending emails, making phone calls and turning up at their address.
In other messages for Mrs McCann, Wandelt recalled “feeding my younger brother in the kitchen” and claimed to have memories of playing Ring a Ring o’ Roses with other children and the McCanns.
In another message, she described an “example of what I can remember”, about a barbecue when she was young, with other children, and she claimed she asked Mrs McCann whether she could get a ball.
The message said: “I cry when I hear your voice. I feel this connection, I don’t know how to explain it.”
She added: “I always thought that you are innocent. I feel in my heart that you did not want this to happen. I know people judge you and they judge me too.
“I know you probably finished, closed, this chapter in your life, and I know you don’t want to open this again probably, but I always want to hear your voice.”
In a voicemail, Wandelt claimed to have a memory of “trying to shout ‘mummy, daddy’”, adding: “I could not say anything. I could not shout, I could not do anything.”
Wandelt repeatedly begged Madeleine’s parents for a DNA test, the court heard.
In another voicemail left to Mrs McCann that was played to the court, Wandelt was heard saying: “I know you probably think Madeleine’s dead. Well she is not. I really believe I’m her.
“Help me. Don’t think Madeleine is dead. This is a chance. Please, I beg you.
“The police don’t want to help me, they don’t want to help Madeleine. It’s all corrupt.
“I promise you that I will prove who I am because I know you love Madeleine.”
The court previously heard that Wandelt called and messaged Mrs McCann more than 60 times in a single day in April last year.
Wandelt and her co-defendant, Karen Spragg, 61, of Caerau Court Road in Caerau, Cardiff, both deny one count of stalking.
The trial continues.