'German Madeleine McCann' case cracked as DNA linked to neo-Nazi killer 15 years on

Police in Germany believe they have finally solved the case of Peggy Knobloch, a nine-year-old girl who disappeared walking home in 2001.

Known to some in the UK as the ‘German Madeleine McCann’ because of her passing resemblance to the British missing toddler, Peggy’s body was found in July 2016 around nine miles from her home in Lichtenberg, Germany.

A tiny scrap of material was found near the body, on which police found DNA linked to a known neo-nazi named Uwe Boehnhardt.

According to the Mirror, police now say that tests have confirmed that it is in fact Boehnhardt’s DNA on the scrap of material.

Boehnhardt was found dead in 2011 of an apparent suicide after a failed bank raid meant that police were closing in on his three-person neo-nazi cell, the National Socialist Underground (NSU).

The group is suspected of killing eight Greeks, one Turkish person and a German policewoman.

Of his fellow cell-members, Uwe Mundlos took his own life alongside Boehnhardt, while the only surviving member, Beate Zschaepe, is currently on trial for the murders.

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  She has said she no longer agrees with the group’s values and wants to testify about the death of a missing girl, assumed by many to be Peggy.

  A man was found guilty of Peggy’s murder in 2004, but was freed in 2014 when his conviction was declared to be unsound.