Julie Wendell, a 21 year-old woman from Poland, caught the attention of millions by claiming to be the missing Madeleine McCann earlier this year.
On an Instagram account that quickly gained over 1m followers, she began posting photos of all the physical similarities between her and Madeleine, who famously went missing in Portugal in 2007.
This comes after Wendell began questioning her identity, when a comment from her grandmother sparked her to look closer at Madeleine’s unique features.
On social media, she also brought attention to similar freckles and moles, as well as a distinct mark in her right eye, very similar to the long-time missing girl. Alongside this, to back up her theory, she posted side by side photos of her similarities to Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann.
Most recently, Wendell appeared on the Dr Phil show where she answered some major questions about her identity, and what led her to believing she is the long time missing girl.
She explained that she began questioned her identity back in June last year, which led to her tracing back through events of her childhood.
Wendell claimed that she never bonded with her mother, who would often ‘change the subject’ when she asked her about missing pieces in her memory. She claims to have no birth certificate, and says that there are no photographs of her mom pregnant with her.
However, her parents have spoken out on these claims.
”For us as a family it is obvious that Julia is our daughter, granddaughter, sister, niece, cousin and step niece. We have memories, we have pictures. ”
”Julia also has these photos, because she took them from the family home with the birth certificate, as well as numerous hospital discharges.”
”We always tried to understand all situations that happened with Julia. Threats to our address from Julia, her lies and manipulations, activity on the internet… we’ve seen it all and we’ve tried to prevent it, explain it, we’ve asked her to stop.”
They added: ”We always tried to help her get back on her feet. Julia has been of age for several years. She moved out of the house.”
”She refuses treatment, does not take medication regularly. She also did not take advantage of the possibility of treatment at a very good centre in Poland, which agreed to accept her.”
What do you think about the case?
