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Mystery Of The English-Speaking 'Madeleine McCann Homesless Girl' Is Solved

Mystery Of The English-Speaking 'Madeleine McCann Homesless Girl' Is Solved

She is said to respond to being called 'Maria'.

Hamish Kilburn

Hamish Kilburn

Earlier this morning, concerns were raised when authorities thought that an English-speaking homeless woman who had been found walking the streets of Rome could have been the missing Madeleine McCann.

The woman, who reportedly responds to the name 'Maria', had been staying around Piazza della Torretta in central Rome with no passport or ID.

Campaigners believed that she looked like a number of missing girls, including Madeleine, the British toddler who vanished on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz, Portugal in 2007.

But after the alarm was raised, the formal identification of the woman showed that she was in fact a 21-year-old Swede with Asperger's.


Image credit: Missing Persons of America

Embla Jauhojärvi, from Stockholm, is thought to have travelled to Italy six months ago to study. According to the Daily Mail, her father, Tshvo, has contacted police and is waiting for Embla to be relocated before he flies to Italy to be reunited with his daughter.

He said that he has not heard from Embla since she travelled to Rome. When he reportedly tried to engage with Swedish police in order to track her down, the authorities told him that the case would not be taken any further because she is an adult.

A spokesman from Rome's military police, the Carabinieri, told the Mail: "We brought her in and she told us her name is Maria and that she is English and said she was 20.

"But the date of birth she gave us would make her 21. We let her go because she hasn't done anything wrong."

He added: "When we asked her why she was here, she simply said she left her family in England, without giving a precise reason."

Since the discovery, the UK's Metropolitan Police in London has also dismissed the suggestion that the woman identified as Embla is Madeleine.

Featured image credit: PA/Missing Persons of America

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Topics: missing, Madeleine McCann