The development comes after the decomposed body of a young, fair-haired girl aged between two and four, who was killed in at least 2007, was discovered in a suitcase next to a remote motorway in Wynarka near Adelaide in South Australia earlier this month. Madeleine was three-years-old when she went missing from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on 3 May, 2007
However, Australian authorities appear to have quashed suggestions that there may be a link between the skeletal remains in the suitcase and missing Madeleine, whose case has recently been described in the press as “the most high-profile missing person case in the world.”
Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens told reporters there is “absolutely no evidence” that the child is Madeleine.
“There is absolutely no evidence at this point in time that the child is Madeleine McCann ... to suggest something like that at this point in time would purely be speculating to get attention,” he told a parliamentary estimates committee hearing, adding: “We are focusing our inquiries on South Australia but we would be considering any potential missing child. Until we ascertain the identity of the child we need to be open to all possibilities.”
South Australian police say the murdered child whose body was dumped in a suitcase and left on the side of a rural highway in South Australia is likely to have been a girl aged between two and four.
Police believe the young victim was a Caucasian girl aged two-and-a-half to four, three feet tall, with hair seven inches long, and that she was killed at another location sometime after 2007. A black tutu was found with the body, along with a homemade quilt which was machine-stitched from a fabric reportedly manufactured in New York seven years ago.