A mark in the eye, a mole on the leg… “I am Madeleine McCann”. A name and 16 years of mystery turn an Instagram account (iammadeleinemccan) into a tsunami that sweeps trends across all platforms. Spain, Portugal, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom… The viewers of La Isla de las Tentaciones put aside the sexual intrigues on the beach and unscrupulously launch into truecrime. It’s the new reality show. They even ask for the intervention of Carles Porta. If he identified the girl from Portbou thirty years later, why not find Maddie, the girl who disappeared on May 3, 2007 in a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, in the Algarve. Posem llum a la foscor. Not a trace of Paco Lobatón.
Julia, this is the name of the young woman who has fabricated the umpteenth chapter of this mystery to be solved, wants to contact Gerry and Kate McCann. “The police don’t believe me,” she laments. “Help me.” And there goes a legion of researchers to be at home that already exceeds 600,000 followers in five days. The deployed script is simple.
Chapter 1. A young woman takes to Tik Tok and Instagram with videos and photos saying that she could be Maddie. She is 21 years old which could be 19, she could be adopted and she can’t find her birth certificate but she has heard “something” from her grandmother.
Chapter 2. Julia’s 45 posts comparing photos of her and Maddie wake up the digital forensic expert. It looks alike, it doesn’t look alike, it could be, it will be or it won’t be… Forget about the investigations by Scotland Yard, the Portuguese ex-commissioner Gonçalo Amaral –convicted for maintaining that the parents were guilty–, and the German police, who believe that the girl was murdered by the sexual predator Christian Brueckner, in prison for sexual crimes committed between 2000 and 2017 in Portugal.
Chapter 3. The prudence of the McCanns turns to the networks in confirmation that there will be a DNA test. Julia adds an emoji crying with emotion to her account. And if the result is negative? “It could be another missing girl.” Names come out of the drawer rummaging through the wounds of relatives. “It’s not Maddie, she looks like Inga Gehricke, a girl who disappeared in Germany at the age of 5”… Inga would now be 13 years old, not 21… Almost. “The reality is that the three girls have a very generic face”, “even if it is not Madeleine, you have to help her”… The intellectuals wake up: “Madeleine McCann is the Anastasia of the millennials”. And in the end, the memes: SpongeBob eating popcorn waiting for the DNA results… “And if it turns out that she is the daughter of Julio Iglesias?”. Who would she be?