Maddie and the Monster

If innocence has a face then surely it is that of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who in May 2007 went missing from her family holiday home. It is a heartbreaking mystery, but ever since the night she disappeared her anguished but unbroken parents Kate and Gerry have never let the world forget their daughter. However, the evil that befell Madeleine over a decade ago may now finally have a name, Christian Brückner.

In this 60 Minutes special we see Liz Hayes take us inside the heartbreaking case that has seen police forces in three countries having spent 13 years and tens of millions of dollars searching for a breakthrough without even the barest glimmer of hope. Although now that breakthrough appears to have come in the most dramatic way.

In recent weeks police in Germany and Portugal have searched several sites where sex predator Christian Brückner is known to have operated. In this film we see experts trace Brückner’s criminal history through Portugal, living a stone’s throw from where Madeleine was taken, along with his menacing boat hold in Germany where he buried damning evidence of his crimes beneath the body of his dead dog. We also hear exclusive logs from online chat rooms that reveal the true extent of his depraved criminal mind as he describes how he fantasized about abducting and torturing children.

Following Brückner’s trail of shocking crimes we are exposed to the bungles, incompetence, and at other times incredible luck that may have let this psychopath escape initial capture. But we also hear of the extraordinary breakthroughs that could finally bring justice to a little girl who is forever lost.

Experts including German prosecutor Hans Wolters, investigative journalist Kai Feldhaus, criminologist Mark Hoffman and Portuguese journalist Sandra Felgueiras join Liz Hayes to help comb through the new evidence. Maddie and the Monster also examines how close the world is to solving the 13-year mystery of Madeleine’s disappearance and finally bringing justice to her family.