Madeleine McCann: Complete Timeline (2007–2026)

Madeleine McCann disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on the evening of 3 May 2007. Nearly two decades later, her disappearance remains one of the most heavily reported missing-person cases in modern history, and her body has never been found. This timeline traces the key events from that night through to 2026, drawing on official statements, court records and the reporting covered across our other pieces on the case.

2007: Disappearance and First Suspects

3 May — Kate and Gerry McCann, both doctors from Rothley, Leicestershire, were on holiday at the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz with Madeleine and her twin siblings, Sean and Amelie. The McCanns dined with a group of seven friends — later known as the "Tapas Seven" — at a restaurant inside the resort, checking on the children periodically through the evening. Around 10pm, Kate McCann discovered Madeleine was missing from her bed. An immediate search began; borders and airports were alerted. Read the full account of the night itself.

4–10 May — Extensive local searches took place as the case attracted intense international media attention, including celebrity appeals.

14 May — Robert Murat, a British-Portuguese property consultant living near the resort, was made an arguido (formal suspect). He was later cleared and won libel damages over UK media coverage of his arguido status.

August — Portuguese police publicly acknowledged for the first time that Madeleine might be dead, after cadaver dogs indicated possible scent traces in the apartment and in a rental car the McCanns hired weeks later. The forensic detail behind this is covered in full in our piece on the forensic evidence.

7 September — Kate and Gerry McCann were themselves made arguidos. They returned to the UK with the twins shortly afterwards.

2008: Case Archived

21 July — Portugal's Attorney General archived the investigation, citing insufficient evidence to continue. The arguido status of the McCanns and Robert Murat was lifted. The couple later accepted substantial libel damages from several British newspapers over false allegations linking them to their daughter's death. See our piece on the original Portuguese investigation for how the case reached this point within fourteen months.

2011–2019: Operation Grange

May 2011 — Scotland Yard launched Operation Grange, a review of the Portuguese case files, following sustained lobbying from the McCanns' campaign.

July 2013 — Operation Grange became a full Metropolitan Police investigation. A special edition of BBC's Crimewatch that October, watched by around seven million people, led to the man seen in the case's famous 2007 "Tanner sighting" being identified as an innocent holidaymaker rather than an abductor.

2015 onwards — The Operation Grange team was scaled down from a peak of 29 officers to a handful, sustained through periodic Home Office funding renewals. By the mid-2020s, documented costs exceeded £13 million.

2020–2022: Christian Brueckner Named

June 2020 — German prosecutors in Braunschweig announced they were investigating a convicted sex offender in connection with Madeleine's disappearance, later identified in media reporting as Christian Brueckner. German investigators said they believed Madeleine was dead and treated the case as a suspected murder. Phone data reportedly placed a device linked to Brueckner in the Praia da Luz area on the night of the disappearance. He was already serving a prison sentence in Germany for the unrelated 2005 rape of an elderly American woman in the same Portuguese resort region.

2022 — Portuguese authorities formally named Brueckner an arguido in Madeleine's case. Full background is in our explainer on who Christian Brueckner is.

2023–2025: Searches, an Acquittal, and a Release

May 2023 — Portuguese and German officers searched the area around the Arade Dam reservoir, roughly 30 miles from Praia da Luz. No evidence connected to Madeleine was found.

October 2024 — Brueckner was acquitted of separate rape and child sex offence charges relating to alleged offences in Portugal between 2000 and 2017. German prosecutors appealed and, by early 2026, were formally asking the country's highest criminal court to quash the acquittal and order a retrial.

June 2025 — German and Portuguese officers carried out a further multi-day search of scrubland, wells and abandoned structures near Atalaia, close to the resort and areas linked to Brueckner. No public breakthrough was announced.

17 September 2025 — Brueckner was released from Sehnde prison in Germany after completing his seven-year sentence for the 2005 rape. He was placed under supervision conditions and has lived under police monitoring in northern Germany since. He has denied any involvement in Madeleine's disappearance throughout.

2026: The Case in 2026

The Metropolitan Police, through Operation Grange, received a substantial dossier of material from German investigators relating to Brueckner during 2026. British authorities have explored whether Brueckner could eventually be charged and extradited to stand trial in the UK, though German constitutional rules generally restricting the extradition of its own citizens to countries outside the EU make that a genuinely uncertain prospect rather than a settled plan. German prosecutors have continued to say they consider Brueckner responsible for Madeleine's death, while acknowledging they don't yet have enough evidence to meet the threshold for an indictment.

Kate and Gerry McCann marked the start of 2026 with a public statement thanking supporters and expressing hope the year would bring "the breakthrough we long for." Madeleine's younger brother, Sean, reportedly competed for Scotland in swimming at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, with his parents present to support him — a rare piece of ordinary family news in a case otherwise defined by its investigative history.

Why the Case Endures

The combination of a missing child from a middle-class British family on a popular European holiday, real controversies in the original investigation, intense and sustained media coverage, and the later emergence of a suspect with a directly relevant criminal history has kept this case in the public eye for nearly two decades. Despite extensive resources across three countries, no conclusive forensic breakthrough has been publicly confirmed, and Madeleine McCann has never been found.

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