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Night Watch: Julia Wandelt Believed She was a Missing Child, DNA Said Otherwise
00:27:12
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- [00:03]
Katie Ring
Hi Crime House community. It's Katie looking for another Crime House.
- [00:06]
Crime House Host
Original podcast to add to your rotation. You will love Clues with Morgan Abshur and Kaylin Moore. Every Wednesday, Morgan and Kaylin dig into the world's most notorious crimes, clue by clue, from serial killers to shocking murders. They follow the trail of clues, break down the evidence and debate the theories. It's like hanging out with your smart.
- [00:28]
Katie Ring
And true crime obsessed friends. Listen to clues on Apple podcasts, Spotify.
- [00:33]
Crime House Host
Amazon Music or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. Tonight we're breaking down a story that swept across Europe, dredging up decades old heartache and adding new mystery to an unsolved case. In October 2025, 24 year old Julia Wandell went on trial after being accused of stalking the family of Madeleine McCann who disappeared without a trace back in 2007 when she was just three years old. Julia became fixated on the McCanns after forming the belief that she was Madeline. And while she's not the first person to make this claim, she is the first one to take things as far as she did.
- [01:26]
News Reporter
Let's get into it now to a bizarre twist in the Madeleine McCann case this morning, a teenager from Poland coming forward claiming she is the missing British.
- [01:36]
Crime House Host
Girl woman accused of stalking the parents of a missing British girl, Madeleine McCann.
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News Reporter
It's the mother of Madeleine McCann has told a court she felt distressed when she was confronted by two women on her driveway, one of whom falsely claimed to be her missing daughter.
- [01:53]
Crime House Host
Foreign. Hi, I'm Katie Ring and this is Crime House Daily, your weekday true crime companion. We follow the cases making headlines now where justice is still unfolding. This is a Night Watch episode bringing you today's biggest crime stories. For a video, check out our YouTube channel, Rimehouse Daily or follow Night Watch on Spotify. This episode discusses active criminal cases and breaking news. The information we share is based on what's publicly available at the time of recording and may change as new evidence comes to light. We aim to inform, not to decide guilt or innocence. So everyone mentioned is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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- [03:16]
Crime House Host
Tonight's story is tied to one of the UK's most infamous true crime mysteries, the disappearance of Madeline McCann. Madeleine was three years old when she disappeared while on vacation with her family in 2007. And since her disappearance, over a dozen women have come forward to claim that they are Madeline. And the woman at the center of our case tonight is 24 year old Julia Wandell. In 2022, Julia became convinced that she was Madeline and that she had been kidnapped and adopted by another family. For a year, Julia went to great lengths to prove she was right and even reached out to the McCann family. But when no one believed her, she took desperate measures and things reached a boiling point in 2024 when Julia found an accomplice who encouraged her to confront the McCann family at their home. In February 2025, Julia and her accomplice were both arrested on charges relating to stalking. While in jail, Julia submitted to a DNA test that finally revealed the truth of who she is, or should I say, who she wasn't. And it shattered her world. But that was only the beginning, because on October 6, 2025, Julia's trial began. And when she finally got to see the McCanns face to face, it was nothing like she'd been hoping for. Finally, on November 7, after a month long trial, Julia was found guilty of harassment. Now she's being sent back to her home country of Poland. So why did Julia take things so far only to end up right back at square one? Most of what we know about Julia comes from her own interviews and testimony. And while much of what she says about her past is absolutely heartbreaking, it's also worth noting that none of it has been verified. However, Julia's feelings and beliefs play a huge role in the events that recently transpired. So to understand how it all led to this, we'll tell you the story as she tells it. Julia says that she grew up in Poland and had lived there for as long as she could remember, but that she doesn't remember a lot about her childhood. She always found this odd, but it didn't become a huge problem for her until 2020, when she was about 19 years old. @ that time, some memories finally began to resurface for Julia, but they weren't good ones. Seemingly out of nowhere, she was suddenly haunted by the memory of being sexually abused by her step grandfather. When she was just nine years old. After this memory resurfaced, Julia decided to ask her grandmother about it. But when she did, her grandmother just said not to tell anyone, which left Julia to deal with her trauma all on her own. She started feeling extremely depressed and began experiencing suicidal ideation. So Julia contacted a therapist and started undergoing counseling. But unfortunately, therapy didn't seem to help. And Julia's anxiety only spiraled from there. And her fears started to extend into other aspects of her family life. She started to question whether her parents were actually her parents or that maybe she was adopted. But this wasn't completely out of left field, because Julia never thought she looked like her parents. And she was never able to tell if she looked like them as a kid either, because her parents didn't have many photos of her from her childhood. Another thing that seemed weird to Julia was that she couldn't find any photographs of her mother while she was pregnant. And that she had never been able to track down any medical records from her early years. And when Julia asked her parents about it, they were pretty dismissive, which made her suspect they were hiding something from her even more. Especially because she and her mom had never had a great relationship. According to Julia, all throughout her childhood, her mom never hugged her or even said, I love you. Since her parents were being evasive, she tried to find a more direct way to get to the bottom of things. And asked her parents to submit to a DNA test to prove that they were her biological parents. But they refused, which again only deepened her suspicions. Julia began to wonder why her parents would be so secretive. And that's when she started considering a more sinister explanation. Julia began to wonder if she wasn't adopted, maybe she was kidnapped. She believed that this was a plausible reason as to why her parents wouldn't tell her the truth, because they couldn't produce the adoption paperwork or tell her the truth about where she came from. So Julia decided to try and track down her potential origins on her own. She started searching through missing persons databases to see if she could find missing children who matched her physical description and who were born around the same time as her. And pretty soon, she stumbled across the case of Madeleine McCann, a three year old girl from the UK who vanished back in 2007. And as Julia looked more into Madeline's case, she made some shocking.
- [08:39]
Katie Ring
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- [10:08]
Crime House Host
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Crime House Host
Namaste. Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts. In 2022, 21 year old Julia Wandell started to believe that her parents may have adopted her through illegal means. So she started searching missing persons databases to find children who were born around the same time as her. Soon, Julia stumbled upon the case of Madeleine McCann. Madeline's case quickly made international headlines following her disappearance, but if you're not familiar with the case, here's a quick overview. Madeline went missing in May 2007 when she was just three years old. Her family was on vacation at a resort in Portugal with a few family friends and her parents, Jerry and Kate brought all of their children with them, including Madeline and their two year old twins, Sean and Amelie. Some of her parents friends brought their children as well, and each night the adults on the trip carved out some kid free time during dinner. So while they dined at the resort, the kids stayed in the suites. The parents created a schedule where every 30 minutes, they took turns checking in on the kids. And to make things easier, they decided to leave the suites unlocked. One night, Kate checked on the children at around 10pm but when she went upstairs, there was no sign of Madeline. Kate flew into a frenzy and started running around and yelling that her daughter had been taken. Resort staff quickly alerted police, and almost everyone at the resort, including the McCanns, their friends, resort employees, and even other guests, were helping in the search. But there was no sign of Madeline anywhere. Portuguese and British authorities continued to search for years and even identified dozens of potential suspects. Portuguese authorities eyed the McCanns themselves as suspects for a full year, but eventually determined that there wasn't enough evidence to keep looking into them. However, the case remains unsolved, and the search for Madeline has continued into 2025. Madeline's disappearance is tragic, but it's not the only reason the case became so well known. Since her disappearance, over a dozen women have claimed to be Madeline. However, police have dismissed all of those claims. But Julia made some unprecedented connections between herself and Madeline. To start, they share some unique physical traits. Not only do they both have light colored eyes, but they have the same mark on their right iris. They also each have a dimple on their left cheek. And that's not all. As Julia learned more about the investigation into Madeline's disappearance, she began looking through the suspect list. Soon, she found a police sketch of one man who she believed bore a striking resemblance to her step grandfather. The same person Julia had accused of sexually abusing her. Not only that, but the suspect and her step grandfather had the same last name. These revelations sent Julia spiraling. She already wasn't doing well. In June of 2022, while Julia went down this rabbit hole, she was also checked into a mental health care facility. And soon she started to think if she was Madeleine McCann, then was her step grandfather the same person who kidnapped her? It's worth noting that Julia's official birth year is 2001, while Madeline's was 2004. But this didn't seem to dissuade Julia, who thought her birth certificate could be fake. Desperate for answers, she tracked down the McCanns. Jerry and Kate were both doctors, and Julia figured out which hospital they worked at and called the hospital to try and reach them. But she didn't get through to them. So next she called the police. As we mentioned, UK authorities were still investigating Madeline's disappearance. So they looked into Julia's Claims. However, they quickly determined that Julia was not, in fact, Madeline. According to the police, Julia seemed relieved to hear this, but she still wasn't done searching for the truth. In fact, she only became more convinced that her real identity had been kept a secret all of her life. So while she might not have been Madeline, Julia thought she could be a different missing girl. She found two other cases. Inga Gerica, who went missing from Germany in 2015, and Acacia Bishop, who went missing from Utah in 2003. Then by early 2023, Julia contacted a charity that specialized in assisting with cold cases. She floated the idea that she could be Inga or Acacia, but the charity didn't think it was likely. At this point, Julia was left feeling more empty handed than ever. With no other options, she circled back to her original theory that she was Madeline. This time, she dove into it head first. She just wanted someone to believe her. So she created an Instagram account with the handle I am Madeline McCann. Notably, with the last N missing from the family name, Julia posted videos of herself explaining her belief. Then she started posting side by side pictures of herself and Madeline in an effort to prove they were the same person. And as people stumbled across the account, they also became convinced of Julia's theory. And she quickly gained over 1 million followers. As Julia's audience grew, she started to open up even more. She began posting about her struggles with mental health and her belief that she was sexually abused as a child. While not everyone was buying it, many people took to the comments to offer Julia love and support. In 2023, once her story gained even more traction, Julia appeared on Dr. Phil. Despite all of the buzz, Julia still struggled to be noticed by the only people she really wanted attention from the McCanns. So after her Dr. Phil interview, she ramped up her efforts to contact them. She started by calling Jerry and Kate's hospital like she did a year before. Then she emailed them and even began calling their home phone. Julia made attempts to contact the McCanns for an entire year, but everything went unanswered. Then, in 2024, Julia seemed to realize she was taking things too far. That January, she spoke to a BBC journalist and said she regretted making the Instagram. She also posted a public apology to the McCanns. Julia's parents also gave a statement saying that they never doubted Julia was their biological daughter and that they were trying to be understanding and accommodating of what she was going through. It seemed like things were settling down when a spokesperson for the McCanns accepted Julia's apology on their behalf. But shortly after the BBC article was released, Julia went right back to harassing the family, and she became more aggressive than.
- [17:55]
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- [19:45]
Crime House Host
Faster. Try now@windows.com copilot throughout the remainder of 2024, Julia Wandell called and emailed the McCanns non stop. The McCanns never picked up when Julia called them, so she left voicemails, and each one became increasingly desperate. In one message, Julia begged Kate to, quote, give me a chance. Other messages bordered on conspiratorial. For example, Julia told Kate that she remembered her coming into her room the night she was abducted. In that message, Julia claimed that on that night in 2007, Kate said to her, quote, I love you and I will find you. Essentially, Julia was suggesting that Kate was in on the kidnapping. In other messages, Julia even called Kate Mommy and she signed her emails as Madeline, despite never getting a response. Julia sometimes called Kate 50 times a day. And when it finally became clear that neither Kate nor Jerry would spend speak to her, Julia contacted their other children, Sean and Amelie, on social media. At the time, they were 19 years old. And in her messages to them, Julia claimed that she had memories of feeding Shawn when he was a baby. When Shawn saw the messages, he blocked Julia right away. In interviews since then, he said that even though he feels some sympathy for her, considering she's clearly struggling with her mental health, he won't encourage her behavior. Julia sent Amelie similar messages, saying she remembered playing with her when she was a baby. While Amelie also didn't respond, she didn't block Julia either. So Julia kept messaging her. She sent Amelie pictures of each of them as children and pointed out how similar they look. However, Amelie could tell that the pictures were photoshopped. But when Julia still didn't hear back from Amelie, she tried a different approach. She tried to convince her to do a DNA test or talk her parents into doing one. But Amelie doesn't respond. So Julia tries yet another tactic. This time, she contacted the McCann's family friends who were with the family on vacation when Madeline disappeared. And she accused one man, David Payne, of knowing more than he had let on in the early days of the investigation. She even sent David and his wife a holiday card that said, quote, merry Christmas, David. The truth will come out. Eventually, Julia got tired of the radio silence, and she decided that the only way she could actually have a conversation with the McCanns was if she confronted them in person. So in May 2024, she attended an annual vigil held for Madeline in England, organized by Madeline's great aunt. She was expecting to run into the McCanns there, but little did she know, they weren't able to attend. That year. When she arrived at the vigil, Julia immediately began searching for the family. But when she didn't see them anywhere, she approached Madeline's great aunt, Janet Kennedy, instead. Julia asked Janet for help getting in touch with the McCanns, and Janet took the letter that Julia had written. But the McCanns never got in touch. However, the police did reach out after Julia attended the vigil and reiterated that she was, without a doubt, not Madeleine McCann, and that she was just one of hundreds of women who have thought they were Madeline. The officer did, however, say that despite taking her DNA, they had not sent it in for testing because they were not going to spend even more public resources on this case knowing that she was not Madeline. I think that hearing that her DNA hadn't been sent in for testing made Julia spiral even more. And it was only made worse when a 60 year old Welsh woman named Karen Sprague reached out to Julia on social media in September of 2024. Karen was a firm believer in that the McCanns were behind their daughter's disappearance and she wanted to help Julia get to the bottom of things. So Julia and Karen made a plan to show up at the McCann's house and demand a DNA test. Karen also had a backup plan. If the McCanns didn't cooperate, they could search their trash for items with trace amounts of DNA on them. Julia was on board with everything. And on December 7th, she and Karen traveled to the McCann's family home. No one was there when they arrived, so they waited outside. Eventually, Kate returned home, but it was dark and she didn't see Karen and Julia waiting there for her until she got out of her car. Fortunately, she managed to get past them, lock the door behind her and call her husband, who rushed home. When he got there, Karen and Julia tried to shove a note into his hand and but he refused to take it. After a while, the two women finally gave up and left. But Julia returned to the house the next day to leave a note for Kate, which read, quote, yesterday I heard a lot of care and love in your voice. I hope you will find a way to contact me. Julia had no idea that the next time she heard anything from Kate, it wouldn't be from her personally, but from the authorities. Because over the next few months, police looked into Julia's unrelenting attempts to contact the McCanns and prove she was Madeline. They also obtained records of Julia and Karen's conversations, including their premeditated plans to show up at the McCann home and potentially steal samples of their DNA. Finally, on February 19, 2025, Julia and Karen were both arrested and charged with stalking. They both pleaded not guilty and Karen was granted bail. But Julia wasn't. After Julia's arrest, the police decided to finally take a DNA sample from her and test it. Julia eagerly awaited the results, which she believed would definitely prove that she was Madeline McCann. But when the results came back in April, they said it was impossible. Julia was not related to the McCann family at all. However, Julia wouldn't accept these findings. She thought police were engaging in a cover up. And when her trial began on October 6, 2025, Julia still couldn't seem to accept reality. Karen attended her trial and provided emotional support through Julia's multiple emotional breakdowns. When the prosecution presented the DNA evidence, she burst into tears. And when Kate testified about the day Julia and Karen showed up at her house, Julia again started crying loudly and said, quote, why are you doing this to me? When Julia took the stand, she still hadn't seemed to process reality. At one point, she said, quote, why am I standing here? I did not do anything wrong. With so much evidence proving Julia's guilt, her defense attorney argued that she didn't know any better and that her messages were never threatening or hostile. It was just, quote, the confused behavior of a rather sad and pathetic young woman. But that wasn't enough to convince the jury she was innocent. And on November 7, 2025, they decided that Julia was guilty of harassing the McCanns, but not guilty of stalking them. She was sentenced to six months in prison. However, due to time served, Julia won't have to be put back behind bars, but she will be sent back to Poland. But Julia still doesn't feel like she knows where home actually is for her. The trial proved nothing about her true origins. I will say my heart breaks for Julia, especially with the alleged abuse she suffered as a child. And I do hope she's able to accept the truth, find mental help, and try to heal. I also hope that Madeline McCann's loved ones can come one step closer to finding solace. With the investigation into Madeline's disappearance still ongoing in the UK maybe one day we will learn the real truth of what happened to.
- [28:16]
Katie Ring
Her. What did you think of tonight's.
- [28:23]
Crime House Host
Case? Drop your thoughts and theories in the.
- [28:25]
Katie Ring
Comments. See you next.
- [28:26]
Crime House Host
Time. If you haven't already, subscribe to our YouTube channel Rimehouse Daily and follow us on social media at Crime House 247 for real time updates. Because the pursuit of justice never stops.