Julia Wendell, a Polish woman in her early twenties, has come to believe that she is missing British girl Madeleine McCann.
Her story has made headlines around the world, with many pundits commenting on the similarities between the woman “with no past” and the Leicestershire tot who went missing from a holiday apartment in Portugal in 2007.
But speaking to US news channel News Nation, British reporter Chris Chandler has declared he will “eat his own hat” if the allegation turns out to be true.
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Chris was one of the first journalists to interview Julia – who is also known as Julia Faustyna – and did at one point believe that she could have been Madeleine.
Speaking to News Nation’s Adrienne Bankert yesterday, Chris says he has since “done a lot of research” into Julia’s claims and he convinced that she is not Madeleine McCann.
He points out that Dr Fia Johansson, the self-styled “Persian Medium” who is supporting Julia's claim, has produced a total of 400 minutes of video about the story.
Dr Johansson is also selling paid subscriptions to her live video feeds – something that a genuine claimant would not do, Chris suggests.
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He also points out that facial recognition software has found few similarities between Julia and Madeleine, and that the Met Police – who had been handling the investigation in concert with their Portuguese counterparts – didn’t appear to be convinced by Julia’s story.
Adrienne replied that the claims seemed like a “scam” and a “money grab” which seemed especially cruel to Kate and Gerry McCann, the missing girl’s parents.
Dr Johansson has said that there had been no need to go to the McCanns for DNA confirmation. : “A lot of you ask why Kate and Gerry (are not involved)," she said on Instagram Live.
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“There is no need – Madeleine McCann's DNA is already there… they don't need to get involved with [the] media [or the] press," she said.
“When the the DNA test comes in, which I am really badly waiting for and checking every day the status of it, we will match with a DNA test of (Madeleine) McCann".
Dr Johansson added that Julia's DNA could also prove to be a match with "anyone else out there that looking for their kid that may [be] missing at that time.”
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Chris concluded: “Whatever the outcome might be” from Julia’s DNA tests, he says, “I hope that she gets the support that she needs”.
While she almost certainly isn’t Madeleine, he says, it remains possible that she was abducted as a child, and that her true identity is yet to be discovered.
And while he says the claim that Julia is Madeleine seems very unlikely, he admits that it does remain a possibility and has promised to "eat his hat" on live TV if the allegation is eventually proven.
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