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28th March 2023
09:12am BST
A Polish woman who claims to be Madeleine McCann has appeared on Dr Phil in the US, where she has insisted she will complete whatever tests are necessary to prove she is the girl who went missing while on vacation in Portugal.
Julia Wendell, who is also known by the names Julia Faustyna and Julia Wandelt, went viral in February after sharing what she claimed as “evidence” on Instagram that she is the girl who went missing in Praia da Luz in 2007. The evidence included some freckles on her leg and an eye defect. The 21-year-old, who would be two years older than Maddie who would turn 19 in April, has said she does not remember large chunks of her childhood, or the moment she was supposedly taken. She has also claimed she was abused by a German paedophile who looks like someone who was once a suspect in Maddie’s disappearance. Polish police have disputed Julia's evidence and her parents have claimed she is unwell.
Julia appeared on Dr Phil on Monday night along with the medium she has been working with, Dr Fia Johansson, and reiterated her claims that she is Madeleine, saying " I believe I am Madeleine McCann".
Dr Phil opened the show by saying that Julia claims she might be "the most famous missing little girl in the world" and that her social media videos had prompted millions of people to ask the same thing, "is it possible that Madeleine McCann has finally been found?"
He went on to say Julia's parents believe her claims are a "cruel hoax", and asked: "So, is Julia telling the truth? She's going to answer that herself."
When question on what she would do if DNA tests showed her biological parents were not Kate and Gerry McCann, Julia said she would reject her mother.
"If she is my mother I don't want to have contact with her. But I don't believe she is."
Julia told Dr Phil that her mother would change the subject when she questioned her birth, and suggested that pictures and her birth certificate were never shown to her.
She further claimed that a document in Poland that tracked her health as a child has six blank pages at the start.
Dr Phil talked her through photos Julia claims show similarities to Madeleine, including ones showing her eye defect, and spoke about her claims to laugh the same as Madeleine.
He asked about her family, who maintain they are her biological parents and have issued a lengthy statement refuting Julia's claims, but she told the chat show that her mother "didn't want to show me any proof".
Dr Phil said: "She says she went to the hospital and gave birth to you."
"She said, yes. When I asked her for DNA before this whole situation, when I asked her for some pictures from her pregnancy, some childhood pictures… she refused," Julia said.
Julia confirmed that she did not yet have the results of DNA testing, but Fia has done some ancestry checks.
Dr Phil tried to quiz Julia on why she had not sent DNA samples to Scotland Yard. Julia said she had tried but had not heard back.
Fia, who also spoke on the programme, said while it is not yet possible to say Julia is Madeleine, it is yet to be completely disproved.
Julia's appearance on the show comes at is was revealed Monday that police investigating Madeleine's disappearance are to be given another £300,000 to continue their inquires.
Reports have suggested Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, are reportedly open to a DNA test, but they have never spoken about Julia's case publicly.
Madeline was just four years old when she disappeared from her holiday apartment. No trace of her has ever been found and no one has been arrested. The prime suspect in the disappearance, convicted sex offender Christian Brueckner, has been charged in Germany with unrelated sexual offences. He is accused of five offences between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal. German prosecutors say the investigation into Maddie’s disappearance is ongoing separately.
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