An American woman from Arkansas is claiming that she is the real Madeleine McCann, a British girl who disappeared in 2007 while on a family vacation in Portugal.
Eugenea Collins, 22, began posting her claims on Instagram in September 2024 with the username TheOfficialMadeleineMcCann, and the account features numerous side-by-side photos of Collins and McCann.
In her most recent post, Collins shared an ancestry DNA test that shows she is 68 per cent English and northwestern European, which she believes supports her claims.
Collins claims she has struggled to obtain official identification, including her birth certificate. In an Instagram post from November 2024, Collins wrote, “I am 22 years old and my birthday is October 23rd 2002. I am unable to get an id due to my paperwork not having the same matching name all of the way across.”
“I have also never seen an original birth certificate just the one from after my stepdad adopted me which created one and ‘sealed’ off everything and up until 2018 you weren’t Able to ever have the stuff opened back up,” she added.
“Without an id I can’t go to college or even get a job so I can support myself. I graduated high school a year early and I could really do something with my life if given the opportunity.”
In another social media post, Collins shared photos of her biological father, named Eugene, and claimed he looked similar to Christian Brueckner, who was under investigation in the 2007 disappearance of McCann.
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“I was always told the man in the photos was my biological father Eugene Collins. The man I’m named after. I never had any relationship with this man whatsoever and I was always told he was a little off in the head,” Collins wrote.
“My mother never allowed us to have any kind of relationship with him whatsoever and now I understand why.”
Collins said that she’s “met him a couple of times” and claims he’s “always been weird about his picture being taken.”
“When I first saw the photos of Christian Bruckner I instantly recognized that man,” Collins wrote.
Brueckner hasn’t been formally charged in the McCann case. He spent many years in Portugal, including in the resort of Praia da Luz around the time of McCan’s disappearance there in 2007. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.
Collins also told the U.K. tabloid Daily Mail that she first began to think she was McCann when she saw Polish woman Julia Wandel claim the same thing while appearing on Dr. Phil.
“If it wasn’t for me seeing her on the Dr. Phil show I would’ve never known. In a way her stupidity actually helped me find my family,” Collins claimed. “I saw the age progressions and it was like I was looking in a mirror. I just know I saw pictures of myself online and it says I’m missing.”
Collins said she has tried to contact police in Arkansas about her claims but they have not taken her seriously.
This comes just days after Wandel, also known as Julia Wandelt or Julia Wendell, was arrested and accused of stalking McCann’s family by contacting them incessantly and turning up at their home in the U.K.
Wandel was arrested on Wednesday at an airport in Bristol.
According to the outlet, she has been charged with stalking four members of the McCann family — parents Gerry and Kate, and twin siblings Sean and Amelie — throughout 2024 and into 2025. She is also alleged to have paid unwanted and unsolicited visits to their home twice, in May and December of last year.
On the left is Julia Wandel, the Polish woman who claims to be missing girl Madeleine McCann, on the right.
@iammadeleinemccan/Family of Madeleine McCann
The charges state the alleged contact, which came in the form of phone calls, voicemails, a letter and WhatsApp and Instagram messages, “had a substantial adverse effect” on the family.
In 2023, Wandel began posting numerous pieces of “evidence” to social media, saying she believed she might be the missing McCann.
Her spokesperson said a DNA test confirmed Wandel was not the missing girl. In fact, the test showed that Wandel has near 100 per cent Polish heritage, with no evidence of British or even German ancestry.
Polish police disputed Wandel’s claims that she was McCann about a week after she reached viral fame and Wandel’s own parents spoke out about her campaign, saying they were “devastated” by her claims and the worldwide media attention they garnered.
— With files from Motorcycle accident toronto today’ Michelle Butterfield and The Associated Press
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