Woman who claimed she is Madeleine McCann to take new DNA test after first showed she wasn't missing girl
18 April 2023, 12:38
The woman who claimed she is Madeleine McCann will take a fresh DNA test after the original proved she was not the missing toddler.
Julia Wendell's initial claims that she was Madeleine were disproved after a DNA test proved the her ancestry was mostly Polish and she could not be the youngster who vanished on a family holiday to Portugal in 2007.
Revealing her plans on Instagram, she wrote: "I want to do this because I just want to do this and I don't even have to explain why but I think everyone knows why I want to do this. When the results come I will let you know everything.
Julia claimed she has "support" from officials and people in law enforcement, and that she has requested documents from Dr Fia Johansson, the private investigator/celebrity psychic who had power of attorney over her in America.
Read More: Woman who claimed to be Madeleine McCann apologises to girl's parents for causing them 'sadness'
Last week Julia apologised to Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann for causing them "sadness" as a result of her claims.
Julia sparked a worldwide storm after claiming she was Madeleine. Her original Instagram account iammadeleinemccan had more than one million followers before it was deactivated.
She said she had few memories from her childhood and pointed to a defect in her eye similar to the one Madeleine was known to have to back up her claims.
In recent posts, she insisted: "I have to say I never said I am Madeleine. I always said that I believe I could be Madeleine."
Private investigator and celebrity medium Dr Johansson took her to California after she received death threats in Poland. She was given power of attorney over the 21-year-old and appeared alongside her on US talk show Dr Phil.
After the DNA test proved she was not Madeleine, Julia returned to Poland and has said that Dr Fia Johansson was "trying to scare" her adding that she’s no longer sure whether the “medium” ever wanted to help at all.
"When I first met Fia for the first time I thought she wanted to help me,” she said. "Now I know she wants only new followers, new clients."
In her latest video she added that she thought Dr Johansson started to make false allegations about her because she is angry that Julia returned to Poland, jeopardising chances to work with production companies with Julia's story.
Dr Johansson has said that Julia is probably shook by the reality that she is not Madeleine.
Madeleine vanished on a family holiday to Portugal in 2007 aged three.
Scotland Yard cops investigating what happened are set to be given another £300,000 to keep the case going.
