Stalking accused ‘bombarded Find Madeleine site’

A woman accused of stalking the parents of Madeleine McCann “bombarded” a website devoted to search for the missing girl with messages, a court has heard.

Julia Wandelt, 24, and Karen Spragg, 61, are on trial at Leicester Crown Court charged with stalking Kate and Gerry McCann.

Giving evidence on Monday, the webmaster of the findmadeleine.com website said she received numerous emails from Miss Wandelt, who has claimed to be Madeleine, starting in June 2022 up until her arrest this year.

In emails read to the court, Miss Wandelt said “I’m not crazy, I just want to find out who I am”.

Madeleine’s disappearance at the age of three in Portugal is one of the most widely reported missing child cases and remains unsolved.

Stacy Gorman told the court she started to help run the website in the months after she went missing in 2007.

Mrs Gorman, who lives in Washington, US, later took sole control of the site and was the only person managing the email inboxes when the first message was sent by Miss Wandelt in 2022.

The webpage was affiliated with the McCanns and the Mrs Gorman said she would have monthly conversations with the family, who live in Leicestershire.

Jurors were told the messages were addressed to Kate and Gerry McCann and appealed for a DNA test to take place.

“Why do police not want to compare my DNA samples with Kate and Gerry’s DNA sample?” she said. “I’m telling the truth and I’ll prove it one day.”

Mrs Gorman said Kate and Gerry initially felt “sympathetic” towards Miss Wandelt.

“They showed her a lot of grace,” she said.

“But as time went on I became concerned because she had a big following on social media and there was a concerted effort to bombard our email.

“Julia wasn’t aggressive but a lot of the other people were extremely aggressive.”

Earlier on Monday, the court heard from forensic scientist Rosalyn Hammond who said DNA testing showed Miss Wandelt “cannot be Madeleine”.

The trial heard evidence taken from a pillow at the family’s Leicestershire home shortly after she went missing was used to compare DNA with the defendant.

The forensic specialist said of 32 components of a DNA test, only seven matched between the two samples.

Only one difference would have been enough for her to potentially rule out a match, she said.

Miss Wandelt, of Jana Kochanowskiego in Lubin, Poland, and her co-defendant Mrs Spragg, of Caerau Court Road, Cardiff, deny stalking the McCanns, causing serious alarm and distress.

The court previously heard Mrs Spragg struck up a relationship with Miss Wandelt and supported her claims and conspiracy theories, and alongside the Polish national confronted the McCanns directly in December 2024.

Mrs Spragg recorded a message she left on Mrs McCann’s phone in late 2024 – prior to their visit to the McCanns’ home – which was played at the trial on Tuesday.

She said people believed there was a “cover-up” and that the McCanns’ names had been “blackened” and urged the couple to do a DNA test with Miss Wandelt.

A crime report was created by the Met Police after Miss Wandelt and an “older woman” turned up at the McCanns’ home in December 2024.

Miss Wandelt was arrested in February 2025 after flying to Bristol Airport, with Mrs Spragg detained in a nearby car park.

The trial continues.