"The blond-haired girl went missing from a stretch of woodland near a church-run assisted-living facility for people with mental health or alcohol problems near Stendal between 6.30pm and 6.45pm on 2 May 2015.
Initially, police assumed that Inga had got lost in the forest while trying to gather wood for a barbecue planned for that evening. A reward of €25,000 was offered for any vital clues for the child’s whereabouts.
According to Küllmei, on 1 May Brückner was involved in a minor traffic accident at a car park on the A2 motorway, about 100 kilometres from the spot where Inga went missing the next day." (Grauniad)
Ah, definite proof, then. Somebody who is (at least superficially) a plausible suspect for the crime was 100km away from the crime scene the day before. Can't be surprised: this was the logic that proved the Birmingham Six were guilty as Hell (six people of the right nationality were within 50 miles of the crime scene, that'll do).
And... nearby to the area where "the German Maddie" went missing, and a lot closer than 100km away, is a church-run assisted-living facility for people with mental health or alcohol problems. Hopefully it occured to the German police to account for the whereabouts of the residents and to check their past criminal histories?
Having said that... I watched that sensationalist Australian documentary 60 Minutes. You could have summated their case in a lot less than an hour. But even without the questionable presentation, the leaping to conclusions and the dumb repetition of key points..... the computer memory sticks that were recovered. At least some of which had actionable material on. And the thing that was shown but never mentioned... a collection, well, two, maybe three - of bathing costumes which looked correctly sized for five or six year old girls. What the Hells was a 43 year old man with no children of his own, and no apparent uncle responsibilities, doing with those? who did they belong to and what forensic tests have been carried out? Have the parents of any missing girls been asked to identify them? for me, that was the standout evidence of something odd going on. (Unless a copper brought the evidence with him, just to make sure... you cannot rule that out either, unfortunately).