Full Name: Renè Hasèe

Alternative Name:

Case Status: Missing

Record ID#: 0203

*The names “Jane Doe”  and “John Doe” are English names used when the person’s true name is not known. If used above, the name refers to a person of unknown identity.

Date of Birth*: Circa 1990
Birthplace:
Age at the Time: 6
Age Group: Child (6 to 9 Years Old)
Biological Sex: Male
Hair: Blonde
Eyes: Blue, Gray
Skin Complexion: Fair or Light
Shoe Size:
Ethnicity: Caucasian or White
Nationality: Germany
Languages Spoken: German

*If the date says January 1, this is often just a placeholder for an unknown specific date. It usually means “sometime that year”.

Physical Build: Slim or Thin

Height:

Weight

Distinguishing Marks:

Medical Condition:
Physical Abnormality:
Dental Condition:
Scars & Other Marks:
Piercings:
Tattoos:

Other Descriptors:

Clothing

Possessions:

Date of the Disappearance*: June 19, 1996

Description: It was meant to be a peaceful family holiday — waves lapping at the Algarve coast, the smell of salt and grilled seafood in the air.
For six-year-old René Hasee, it was the kind of summer every child dreams of. René lived with his mother, Anita, in Bergheim-Elsdorf, Germany. She and her partner Peter decided to take him to spend a week on the sun-washed coast of southern Portugal, near the small town of Aljezur.

After enjoying an al-fresco meal at the nearby Paraiso do Mar restaurant, the group set out for an evening walk along the beach around 6:00 PM (18:00). René excitedly removed his shirt and trousers to play around in the sand while Anita and Peter trailed behind at a relaxed pace. Although they were keeping a watchful eye on him, René had ventured about 20 meters (roughly 65 feet) ahead when he suddenly vanished. Despite immediate searches by the family and later by authorities, only the clothes he had discarded in the sand were found.

In their panic, Anita and Peter swiftly alerted the Portuguese police, but the investigation was hindered by the police’s immediate presumption that Renè had entered the ocean and drowned. For instance, reports indicate that no official case file or report was ever created by the authorities at the time, despite claims of a thorough search (Link).

Furthermore, Renè’s family has remained skeptical about a theory that he voluntarily ventured into the water. René was afraid of the water and preferred playing in the sand. His father, Andreas Hasee, who was not on the trip, has emphasized René’s cautious personality and stated that it was not in his nature to have wandered into the water on his own. Andreas has even sought expert opinions on sea conditions which concluded that drowning was unlikely, as the tides and currents that day should have washed any body back to shore. Moreover, René’s footprints ended abruptly where he was last seen, without reaching the water’s edge. At this time, there remains no evidence to confirm whether he entered the water at all.

“He was a lovely boy, my first child. . . . I think of him every day and imagine what sort of man he would have been and what we would have done together.”

Andreas Hasèe (Father)

René’s case remains unsolved, with no significant breakthroughs reported in recent years. The disappearance was reopened in 2020 following developments in the Madeleine McCann case, but it has since gone cold again.

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The unsolved vanishings of Madeleine McCann (2007, Portugal), René Hasee (1996, Portugal), and Inga Gehricke (2015, Germany) have haunted investigators and families alike with their striking similarities. For a time, all three cases were considered possibly linked to suspect Christian Brückner, a German citizen who lived near the location of all three disappearances when they occurred. However, he was cleared in Inga’s disappearance and has only circumstantial connections to René’s disappearance, leaving any tie between their cases still uncertain.

Madeleine McCann

Madeleine McCann, a three-year-old from Rothley, UK, vanished on May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family at a resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal—about 25 miles from Amoreira beach where René disappeared. Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, had left Madeleine and her twin siblings asleep in their ground-floor apartment (5A) at the Ocean Club while dining at a nearby tapas restaurant with friends at around 8:30pm (20:30). They allegedly checked on the children periodically, but around 10:00 PM, Madeleine was gone.

Madeleine was described as a slender Caucasian girl with blonde hair, blue-green eyes, a distinctive coloboma in her right eye, and a birthmark on her left calf. She was approximately 90 cm (2’11”) tall.

The case remains open but unsolved. German authorities continue to investigate Christian Brückner as the prime suspect, citing phone records placing him near the resort on the day of the disappearance and witness descriptions of a suspicious man matching his appearance. A senior detective revealed new evidence in September 2025, but no charges have been filed. Brückner denies any involvement and was released from prison in September 2025 after serving time for unrelated convictions.

Inga Gehricke

Inga Gehricke, a five-year-old German girl, disappeared on May 2, 2015—almost exactly eight years after Madeleine—during a family barbecue at a forested area in Wilhelmshof, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. She helped bring drinks to the sports field and then went off with the other children to collect firewood for a campfire. She was last seen playing at the edge of the forest at around 7:00pm (19:00). When the children returned with the wood, Inga was no longer with them and has not been seen since. Inga had blonde hair in braids, blue eyes, long eyelashes, and was missing her two front upper teeth. She stood about 120 cm (3’11”) tall.

The case was officially closed in 2019 after extensive searches yielded no clues, despite over 2,000 tips and a €25,000 reward. In February 2025, police launched new searches in the area, but no breakthroughs have been reported. Brückner was initially considered due to his nearby property and a traffic incident the day before, but he was ruled out by investigators in October 2024.

Comparison

All three children—René (6), Madeleine (3), and Inga (5)—shared physical similarities: fair skin, blonde hair, and blue eyes. They were young, slender, and disappeared during family outings in tourist-heavy or recreational areas (beaches for René and Madeleine, a forested area for Inga). The incidents occurred in early spring/summer: June for René, May for the others. All were on holiday or away from home, with brief moments of parental distraction.

René and Inga were German speakers, while Madeleine spoke English, but a German suspect could plausibly interact with them. Brückner, with prior convictions involving children (including a six-year-old girl), has been linked circumstantially to René and Madeleine due to his presence in Portugal around those times. However, the connections are weak: no direct evidence ties him to René beyond proximity and timing, and he was cleared in Inga’s case. With Christian Brückner ruled out in Inga’s disappearance, there are fewer similarities between her case and the other two, as Inga’s occurred in Germany rather than Portugal, lacked the beach setting, and has no ongoing ties to Brückner—making her vanishing potentially unrelated and highlighting it as more of a geographic outlier. It’s possible the cases are unrelated, or only some are connected.

Nearly three decades after René’s disappearance, and with Madeleine and Inga’s cases also unresolved, the families continue to seek answers. Whether linked by a common perpetrator or mere coincidence, these tragedies highlight the vulnerabilities of children in seemingly safe environments. The public is urged to report any information to authorities, as even small tips could bring closure. As of October 2025, hope persists, but the mysteries endure.

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Multiple Victims?: Maybe

Rumored or Actual Sightings:

*If the date says January 1, this is often just a placeholder for an unknown specific date. It usually means “sometime that year”.

Date the Body was Recovered:

Description: Unknown

Time of Death:

Cause of Death:

Recovered Remains (if partial):

Suspected Homicide?:

Multiple Victims?: Yes

DNA Tested (No Match):

*If the date says January 1, this is often just a placeholder for an unknown specific date. It usually means “sometime that year”.

Description: The following vehicles are linked to Christian Brückner, a key person of interest in the Madeleine McCann disappearance and possibly René Hasee’s disappearance. Both cars have been recovered by police, but witnesses are asked to keep them in mind when considering information that may assist police.

• Early 1980s Volkswagen T3 Westfalia Camper Van (recovered): White upper body with yellow skirting. Brückner acquired it around 2006–2007 and kept it until 2015.
• 1993 Black or Aubergine-Colored Classic Jaguar, Model XJR6 Supercharged Sedan (recovered): Well-maintained. Brückner bought it secondhand after his release from prison in 1999 and used it in Portugal from 2000–2007. It was re-registered in Germany under his friend’s name (Alexander Bischof) on May 4, 2007—the day after Madeleine disappeared; however, the car was still in Portugal at the time.

License Plate:

• VW campervan – Portuguese Plate
• Jaguar – German Plate

Description: Christian Brückner, a 49-year-old German national (born December 7, 1976), emerged as a key person of interest in 2020. He has a lengthy criminal history spanning over three decades, beginning with petty crimes and escalating to serious sexual offenses. Brückner, described as a drifter, burglar, and handyman, has convictions for burglary, theft, drug trafficking, rape, sexual assault, child abuse, and possession of child pornography.

His criminal activities started early: at age 15, he was convicted of burglary in 1992 in Würzburg, Germany. In 1994, at age 17, Brückner was first charged and convicted of sexual abuse involving a six-year-old girl. He served part of his sentence before fleeing to the Algarve region of Portugal in 1995, the year prior to René’s disappearance.

Brückner remained in Portugal until 1999, when he was arrested and served a couple of months there for petty theft before being extradited back to Germany to complete the remainder of his two-year sentence for the 1994 offense. Upon his release, he returned to Portugal and lived intermittently between Lagos and Praia da Luz until 2007, just after Madeleine’s disappearance.

He stayed off the police radar for several years until 2006, when he was arrested on new theft charges and served an additional nine months. Free once more, his phone logs placed him in Praia da Luz, near the Ocean Club resort, on the same day that Madeleine vanished in 2007. Several witnesses supplied police with descriptions of a suspicious man in the neighborhood the night Madeleine disappeared, descriptions that seemingly match that of Brückner. There is information suggesting he was burglarizing hotels and holiday apartments at the time and may have initially entered the McCanns’ room for that purpose, potentially turning into an opportunistic abduction.

After Madeleine disappeared, Brückner abandoned Portugal and returned to his native Germany. He was sentenced in 2011 to twenty-one months in prison on charges of drug-trafficking before being released once more. In 2015, Brückner sold off his camper van, which police later seized for the investigation into Madeleine’s case. In 2016, he was found guilty on charges of child abuse, sexual abuse of a child, and possession of child pornography.

It was not until 2017 that his potential ties to the disappearance of Madeleine were first recognized, when he allegedly confessed to a friend while drunk that he had information about Madeleine’s case (Link). In the ensuing investigation, it was revealed that Brückner was noted as a potential suspect early in McCann’s case but was seemingly overlooked.

Brückner was arrested again in 2018 and belatedly convicted in 2019 of raping an elderly American woman at her apartment in Praia da Rocha, Portugal, back in 2005. He was identified in that case due to DNA evidence, but he denied the accusations and sought to appeal the conviction. He ultimately served nearly seven years for this crime.

In 2024, Brückner was acquitted of additional charges of rape and sexual abuse in unrelated cases dating back to 2000-2017. Following this, he was released from prison on September 17, 2025, as authorities stated they no longer had legal justification to hold him. Since his release, Brückner has been living on state benefits in a small town in northern Germany, under police surveillance amid public protests demanding his relocation due to safety concerns. Just days after his release, he was spotted enjoying a night out at a nightclub, which reportedly terrified other patrons. In October 2025, Brückner broke his silence in media interviews, denying any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance with a four-word response: “I didn’t do it.” He has also claimed that investigators might “kill” him to silence him, portraying himself as a victim of the state.

Regarding links to René Hasee, it is unclear if there is any direct evidence potentially linking Brückner. All that seems to connect the two is the similarity in proximity, shared nationality, and the opportunity for Brückner to have committed the crime, as he was living in the Algarve at the time. It is unclear if Brückner had targeted boys previously; his known convictions primarily involved females, though some child abuse charges were not gender-specific. He would have been 19 at the time of René’s disappearance. René’s father has expressed hope that the investigation into Brückner might provide answers, but no charges have been filed.

We emphasize the presumption of innocence: Brückner has not been convicted in relation to René or Madeleine, and has been ruled out in the case of Inga.

Described as: German Citizen, Caucasian, Male, Thin or Slender, Light Colored Hair, Blue Eyes