Missing Swiss girl: No link yet to Madeleine case

Swiss police searching for a missing girl said today DNA tests showed a link between the alleged suspect, a 67-year-old man who was found dead last week, and some of the girl’s belongings.

Police said investigations are also under way in Spain and Portugal, where four-year-old Madeleine McCann disappeared three months ago.

But they declined to comment on whether there was any link.

The chief suspect, a Swiss man, had been living Spain since 1990.

Ylenia Lenhard, a five-year-old girl from Appenzell, in north-eastern Switzerland, disappeared on Tuesday afternoon.

Police found her backpack, cycling helmet and scooter in the woods, about 20 miles away on Tuesday evening.

The suspect had “direct contact with the Ylenia’s backpack, helmet and the scooter,” said Bruno Fehr, chief of canton St Gallen criminal police.

The girl’s clothing items were all neatly folded in the backpack, he told reporters, suggesting she was left naked.

Ylenia was last seen when she went to a swimming pool to pick up a bottle of shampoo she had forgotten, according to police.