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Who is Madeleine McCann and why do Epstein files mention missing British child? Ghislaine Maxwell link explained
A new document released as part of the Epstein files references Madeleine McCann, a British child who has been missing since 2007.
A new document released as part of the Epstein files references Madeleine McCann, a British child who has been missing since 2007. A witness reportedly alleged that they saw McCann with Ghislaine Maxwell after the child was believed to be abducted.
A witness statement showed that an individual whose name is redacted reached out to the FBI in 2020, claiming that while walking home from a shop in 2009, they saw a woman who fit Maxwell’s description holding hands with a little girl of about 6. “There was also a middle aged man with them but he was walking much further ahead. When I got up close to the girl I noticed she looked like Madeline McCann. The woman was trying to hurry her along and seemed agitated that I was there,” the witness’ statement reads.
The witness added that the child was covering her right eye the whole time. McCann’s right pupil was distinctive as she had a rare condition called coloboma.
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However, it remains unclear whether the people the witness saw were Maxwell and McCann. Officials in both the UK and the US have said that the mention of McCann in the Epstein files does not represent new evidence. No new case has been opened linking Jeffrey Epstein or Maxwell to McCann’s disappearance.
Who is Madeleine McCann?
McCann was three years old when she disappeared from her bed in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Lagos, Portugal, on the evening of May 3, 2007. Her disappearance was described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most heavily reported missing-person case in modern history".
McCann went missing while on holiday with her parents Kate and Gerry McCann, her two-year-old twin siblings, and a group of family friends and their children. She disappeared while the McCann children had been left asleep in the ground-floor apartment while their parents dined with friends in a restaurant 55 metres away.
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McCann’s disappearance prompted various theories in the years that followed, with some claiming it was a pre-planned abduction by a sexual predator. Christian Brueckner, a German convicted rapist and child sex offender, is a suspect in the case. He was released from a German prison in September 2025 after serving a seven-year sentence for a 2005 rape, and remains under monitoring with an electronic ankle tag.
Other theories included a botched burglary, the involvement of a pedophile ring, or a tragic accident.
McCann’s disappearance remains an unsolved, active case. The child remains missing despite extensive, renewed searches in Portugal in 2025.
