But this hasn't lead to results, sadly, as Maddie has never been found - dead or alive - and no tangible leads have ever been discovered. If she is alive, she would be 19 years old today.
Brueckner has denied any involvement in the disappearance. No body has been found.
Kate and Gerry McCann have issued a statement after the DNA test of the woman claiming to be their missing daughter came back negative - as suspected.
Born on May 12th, 2003, Madeleine would now be 20 years old. She was reported missing a week before her fourth birthday. Her twin siblings, who were also in the room when she was taken, are now 18 years old.
McCann, in case you're not familiar with her story, disappeared while her family was vacationing at a resort in Portugal. Now, 21-year-old Julia Faustyna says she believes she may be McCann, noting that the two share physical similarities, including a coloboma in their right irises.
The case, unsolved for the past 16 years, remains a mystery as no body has ever been found. It sparked a media frenzy in Britain, with developments also followed by outlets around the world and celebrities joining appeals to help find her.
"The body may have been hidden in some sort of freezer somewhere and been transported later in the boot of the car and bodily fluids may have dropped from the corpse. "The freezer hypothesis originates from the circumstances. The car was rented many days after the disappearance and the possible death of the child.
T he parents of missing Madeleine McCann left their three children alone in their apartment every night of their holiday because they did not want a stranger to babysit, it has emerged.
Maddie's parents were reportedly taking it in turns to check on the children, but when was she last seen alive? Madeleine was asleep in the bedroom of the hotel apartment with her two younger siblings on the night of May 3, 2007.
She has co-hosted a Sunday morning political show on Times Radio since September 2022.
Christian B is currently in his 40s and serving a prison sentence in Germany for raping an elderly woman in a flat near to where Madeleine McCann disappeared.
In mid-2020, German officials said the German citizen, identified by media as Christian Brueckner, was a suspect in the case.
By August, Madeleine has been missing for 100 days and police admitted for the first time that she may never be found. They also told the McCanns that they were no longer considering the matter an abduction case but, rather, a murder inquiry.
The top of the apartment was visible from the tapas restaurant, but not the doors. The patio doors could be locked only from the inside, so the McCanns left them closed but unlocked, with the curtains drawn, so they could let themselves in that way when checking on the children.
A court cleared them of any involvement in Madeleine's death
In July 2008, the McCanns were formally cleared as suspects by a Portugese court and no longer named as "arguidos" in the case.
A spokesperson for the family said that they would not take lie detector tests since they had nothing to hide. This shows a lack of understanding in how the polygraph works.
The couple said they did not want to use a babysitter because they did not want to disrupt their children's normal routines, or to leave them with a stranger. And they have spoken of their bitter regret that they chose to leave Madeleine and their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie alone.
Kate McCann was told she was a suspect by Portuguese police, and questioned in detail over an 11-hour period about the night Madeleine went missing. These are the 48 questions Kate McCann point black refused to answer in her police interview. She was asked a total of 49 questions, and only answered one.
But before her, there are three girls who claimed to be Madeleine.
Her fate remains a mystery and no body has ever been found. An official website to find her is still active, while a Facebook page set up to support the campaign has over half a million followers.
Madeleine went missing while on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May 2007, vanishing from their accommodation without trace. Each year hundreds of thousands of pounds are spent on attempts to find her, with a total of £13million being spent since 2011.
After Madeleine vanished, Kate quit her job as a GP to work for children's charities. Gerry McCann is now a professor of cardiology and prides himself on having "established a national and growing international reputation as an expert in Cardiac MRI (magnetic reasoning imaging)" – or scanning, as reported by The Sun.