Timeline in the investigation of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann

SEHNDE, Germany (AP) — A German man under investigation as a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of British girl Madeleine McCann has been released after serving his sentence in an unrelated case.

It's the latest turn in the 18-year mystery over what happened to the 3-year-old, who disappeared while her family was on vacation in the Algarve region of southern Portugal.

The case has received attention around the world with each development, numerous suspects being named and erroneous reports of sightings.

Here’s a timeline of events in the disappearance:

May 3, 2007: Madeleine is reported missing from a vacation apartment in the town of Praia da Luz in the Algarve resort region. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, left her asleep with two smaller siblings while they had dinner at a nearby restaurant, and said they checked frequently on the children. They say Madeleine was kidnapped.

May 6, 2007: Police say there is evidence the girl was abducted, and appeal for her return.

May 11, 2007: David Beckham and other soccer stars appeal for Madeleine’s safe return. Police in Portugal scale down local searches, saying the case has become an international investigation.

May 12, 2007: Madeleine McCann’s fourth birthday.

May 13, 2007: Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling pledges a contribution to a $3 million reward for the safe return of the child.

May 18, 2007: A website set up to help find Madeleine receives 65 million visitors in two days.

May 30, 2007: The McCanns meet with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican to discuss their ordeal. The pontiff pledges to pray for her safe return.

Aug. 3, 2007: Authorities in Belgium investigate a reported sighting of the child in the town of Tongeren. Police issue a drawing of a Dutch-speaking man reportedly seen with the girl and an English-speaking woman at a table outside a pub. Authorities eventually carry out DNA tests on a milkshake bottle from the pub, but the girl’s DNA isn’t found.

Aug. 7, 2007: Portuguese media report that search dogs found traces of blood in the hotel room where Madeleine went missing. The forensic evidence is sent to Britain for testing.

Aug. 11, 2007: Police say new evidence prompts them to consider the possibility the girl is dead 100 days after her disappearance.

Sept. 7. 2007: Gerry and Kate McCann are called in for questioning by police and named as suspects. They aren’t charged and are allowed to leave Portugal.

March 19, 2008: British tabloids the Daily Express and the Daily Star print front page apologies to the McCanns as part of a 1 million pound ($1.24 million) settlement in a libel case. They acknowledged there was no evidence to support claims they caused their daughter’s death.

July 21, 2008: Portuguese authorities halt their investigation and say the McCanns are no longer suspects.

May 12, 2011: Kate McCann publishes a book about the disappearance on what would be her daughter’s eighth birthday.

April 25, 2012: British police say they believe Madeleine could still be alive and release a picture of what she might look like as a 9-year-old.

July 4, 2013: British police say they have launched Operation Grange, after two years of reviewing the investigation. Police say they identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons.

Oct. 24, 2013: Portuguese police reopen case based on new evidence.

June 3, 2014: Search dogs and investigators search an area of scrubland near where Madeleine went missing.

April 28, 2015: A Portuguese judge awards the parents 500,000 euros ($539,000) in a libel action against the detective who published a book alleging they were involved in their daughter’s disappearance.

July 29, 2015: Australian authorities say DNA tests rule out Madeleine McCann in efforts to identify the decomposed remains of a young girl found in a suitcase dumped in bushes near Adelaide.

Sept. 16, 2015: The U.K. says its investigation into the disappearance has cost more than 10 million pounds ($12.4 million). A month later, police reduce the number of officers working on the case from 29 to four.

April 19, 2016: An appeals court in Portugal overturns the libel verdict against the former detective who alleged the parents were responsible for Madeleine’s disappearance.

April 30, 2017: In an interview before the 10-year anniversary since their daughter’s disappearance, the parents say they’re still holding out hope she’ll be found alive. Gerry McCann said it was “devastating” not to have found her, but added: “No parent is going to give up on their child, unless they know for certain their child is dead.”

June 3, 2020: Investigators in Germany announce that Madeleine is presumed dead and a German man convicted of a rape committed in Portugal in 2005 is a suspect.

July 29, 2020: German police complete a search for Madeleine at a garden plot outside Hannover.

May 4, 2021: The McCanns post a statement on the Find Madeleine website saying they still cling to the hope of seeing their daughter again as they prepare to mark her 18th birthday.

April 21, 2022: The German inmate, identified by media as Christian Brückner, is named as a formal suspect by Portuguese authorities. He was in the area where Madeleine disappeared in 2007.

May 25, 2023: Police end a three-day search for clues in the case around a dam some 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Praia da Luz.

Feb. 16, 2024: Brückner goes on trial in Germany over several unrelated sexual offenses that prosecutors allege he committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

Oct. 8, 2024: The Braunschweig state court acquits Brückner in his trial on charges unrelated to the McCann case. The presiding judge says the evidence was insufficient and the court was dealing with unreliable witnesses. The defendant remains in prison because he is still serving a seven-year sentence stemming from his 2019 conviction for the rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Portugal.

June 4, 2025: Police launch a new round of searches for possible evidence in southern Portugal. Investigators give no details of any findings.

Sept. 17, 2025: Brückner is released from a prison in Sehnde, Germany after serving his sentence.

FILE -Kate McCann, mother of missing 4-year-old Madeleine, touches her daughter's cuddle cat toy during a press conference at the residency of the British Ambassador to the Holy See, in Rome, after meeting Pope Benedict XVI earlier during his weekly general audience at the Vatican, May 30, 2007. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito, File)

Lawyer Friedrich Fuelscher arrives in a black car at the prison where Christian B., a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann, is serving a prison sentence in an unrelated case and is expected to be released in Sehnde, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Police officers push back a British photographer who tried to take pictures inside a car leaving a prison, carrying Christian B., a suspect in the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann, in Sehnde, Germany, Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

FILE -A photo of 3-year-old British girl Madeleine McCann is pasted on a board at a bus stop near the resort from where she went missing, May 4, 2007, in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal, where she was on vacation with her family. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Federal agents carrying out immigration arrests in Minnesota's Twin Cities region already shaken by the fatal shooting of a woman rammed the door of one home Sunday and pushed their way inside, part of what the Department of Homeland Security has called its largest enforcement operation ever.

In a dramatic scene similar to those playing out across Minneapolis, agents captured a man in the home just minutes after pepper spraying protesters outside who had confronted the heavily-armed federal agents. Along the residential street, protesters honked car horns, banged on drums and blew whistles in attempts to disrupt the operation.

Video of the clash showed some agents pushing back protesters while a distraught woman later emerged from the house with a document that federal agents presented to arrest the man. Signed by an immigration officer, the document — unlike a warrant signed by a judge — does not authorize forced entry into a private residence. A warrant signed by an immigration officers only authorizes arrest in a public area.

Immigrant advocacy groups have done extensive “know-your-rights” campaigns urging people not to open their doors unless agents have a court order signed by a judge.

But within minutes of ramming the door in a neighborhood filled with single-family homes, the handcuffed man was led away and soon gone.

More than 2,000 immigration arrests have been made in Minnesota since the enforcement operation began at the beginning of December, said Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin.

The Twin Cities — the latest target in President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement campaign — is bracing for what is next after 37-year-old Renee Good was shot and killed by an immigration officer Wednesday.

“We’re seeing a lot of immigration enforcement across Minneapolis and across the state, federal agents just swarming around our neighborhoods,” said Jason Chavez, a Minneapolis city councilmember. “They’ve definitely been out here.”

Chavez, the son of Mexican immigrants who represents an area with a growing immigrant population, said he is closely monitoring information from chat groups about where residents are seeing agents operating.

People holding whistles positioned themselves in freezing temperatures on street corners Sunday in the neighborhood where Good was killed, watching for any signs of federal agents.

More than 20,000 people have taken part in a variety of trainings to become “observers” of enforcement activities in Minnesota since the 2024 election, said Luis Argueta, a spokesperson for Unidos MN, a local human rights organization .

“It’s a role that people choose to take on voluntarily, because they choose to look out for their neighbors,” Argueta said.

The protests have been largely peaceful, but residents remained anxious. On Monday, Minneapolis public schools will start offering remote learning for the next month in response to concerns that children might feel unsafe venturing out while tensions remain high.

Many schools closed last week after Good’s shooting and the upheaval that followed.

While the enforcement activity continues, two of the state’s leading Democrats said that the investigation into Good's shooting death should not be overseen solely by the federal government.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and U.S. Sen. Tina Smith said in separate interviews Sunday that state authorities should be included in the investigation because the federal government has already made clear what it believes happened.

“How can we trust the federal government to do an objective, unbiased investigation, without prejudice, when at the beginning of that investigation they have already announced exactly what they saw — what they think happened," Smith said on ABC’s "This Week."

The Trump administration has defended the officer who shot Good in her car, saying he was protecting himself and fellow agents and that Good had “weaponized” her vehicle.

Todd Lyons, acting director of ICE, defended the officer on Fox News Channel’s “The Sunday Briefing.”

"That law enforcement officer had milliseconds, if not short time to make a decision to save his life and his other fellow agents,” he said.

Lyons also said the administration’s enforcement operations in Minnesota wouldn't be needed “if local jurisdictions worked with us to turn over these criminally illegal aliens once they are already considered a public safety threat by the locals.”

The killing of Good by an ICE officer and the shooting of two people by federal agents in Portland, Oregon, led to dozens of protests across the country over the weekend.

Thousands of people marched Saturday in Minneapolis, where Homeland Security called its deployment of immigration officers in the Twin Cities its biggest ever immigration enforcement operation.

Associated Press journalists Giovanna Dell’Orto in Minneapolis, Thomas Strong in Washington, Bill Barrow in Atlanta, and John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio, contributed.

A woman gets into an altercation with a federal immigration officer as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A federal immigration officer deploys pepper spray as officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member, center, reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Bystanders are treated after being pepper sprayed as federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A family member reacts after federal immigration officers make an arrest Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Federal agents look on after detaining a person during a patrol in Minneapolis, Minn., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press via AP)

Bystanders react after a man was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

People stand near a memorial at the site where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE agent, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

A man looks out of a car window after being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during a traffic stop, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Robbinsdale, Minn. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Border Patrol agents detain a man, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

People shout toward Border Patrol agents making an arrest, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)

Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey holds a news conference on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

Protesters react as they visit a makeshift memorial during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer earlier in the week, Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)