A British couple have opened up after they allegedly spotted a bizarre “shrine” of Madeleine McCann at the reservoir police searched just last week.
Retired couple Ralf and Ann told the Daily Mail just months after McCann went missing that they discovered a memorial and photo of the young girl.
The pair took photographs of the shrine and alerted police to their findings around Christmas in 2007, believing it was of significance – however, they never heard back from Portuguese authorities.
The couple said the makeshift shrine contained boulders in the shape of an arrow that pointed towards a picnic site at the reservoir.
They claimed the memorial, which contained flowers and a photo of McCann, was weighed down by a rock.
Recalling what they came across in 2007, Ralf told Daily Mail: “Our daughter ran on ahead of us and all of a sudden she just shouted to us, ‘Quick, come and look, someone must have died here.’
“When we got down, we noticed a row of stones stretching out into the water and on the last one there was a bouquet of fresh white lilies. We went out and had a look, and on the stone where the flowers were, there was a photograph of Madeleine.
“There was no note or anything and it was all very strange.”
It was the location police searched and dug over last week.
In 2020, after prime suspect Christian Brueckner was identified by German authorities, they contacted detectives who were calling on any tourists in the Algarve area when McCann disappeared in May, 2007 to get in touch.
They said they got a reply back within a few hours from German detectives who asked a wide range of questions including everything they had seen and asked to locate the position on a map.
