Nearly eighteen years after Madeleine McCann’s mysterious disappearance from a Portuguese resort, another young woman has stepped forward, claiming she might be the missing child.
Madeleine was just three years old when she vanished during a family vacation in Lagos, Portugal, in 2007. Despite global media coverage and ongoing investigations, the case has never been conclusively solved. The leading theory remains abduction, though no final answers have emerged. Over the years, a handful of women have come forward claiming to be Madeleine.
One such case that gained widespread attention involved Julia Wandelt, a Polish woman who claimed her DNA results suggested a connection to Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s father. She was later arrested in the UK for allegedly stalking the McCanns.
Now, a second woman has come forward. Eugenea Collins, a 22-year-old from Arkansas, has told the MailOnline that her suspicions about her identity began after she encountered repeated issues trying to obtain identification documents.
“I am unable to get any kind of identification,” Collins said. “I couldn’t even get any help from the people at the Red Cross when my house was burned because I have no identification.”
She explained that she’s never seen her original birth certificate. “The only thing I saw had someone else’s name wrote on it, and they marked that out and wrote mine above it,” she said.
Her claims have sparked online debate. A significant point of contention is that she does not appear to have coloboma — the rare eye defect Madeleine was known to have in her right eye, which caused a distinctive appearance.
“She doesn’t have a mark on her eye and she has photos that seem to be from younger than Maddie was when she went missing,” one user wrote in a Reddit discussion.
Another added, “She has shown pictures of herself at 1 or 2 years old and she doesn’t seem to have an eye mark at all.”
Some online reactions were more skeptical. “Not to be rude here, but your eye doesn’t have that defect in it like she does,” a commenter pointed out.
Another person suggested attention-seeking might be a motive. “More likely to be a woman trying to get an OnlyFans following growing. She doesn’t have the eye scar and Madeleine’s earlobes were detached. Fake Maddy’s are attached wholly, and that doesn’t change,” one Instagram user commented.
Collins has shared DNA results indicating that her genetic makeup is largely British and Northwestern European, but nothing directly links her to the McCann family.
In another surprising claim, Collins stated that she believes her biological father might be Christian Brueckner — the only named suspect in Madeleine’s disappearance.
“I saw pictures of the suspect and he looks like my biological father or who I’ve been told is my biological father my whole life,” she explained. “I never had any relationship with this man whatsoever and I was always told he was a little off in the head.”
“When I first saw the photos of Christian Brueckner, I instantly recognized that man,” she added.
Though her story has attracted curiosity and speculation, as with previous claims, it remains unverified and unconfirmed by authorities.
