Julia Wendel most likely not Madeleine McCann - facial recognition comparison

Photos of Julia Wendel, who also goes by Julia Faustyna, failed to match photos of Madeleine McCann in a facial recognition comparison of the two.

Shortly after Wendel came out with her claims that she is Madeleine McCann, Swiss company Ava-X ran photos of Wendel and McCann through its Iris facial recognition software that specializes in missing person cases.

Ava-X boss Christian Fehrlin told German news outlet Blick that while childhood photos of Wendel and adult photos of her were a hit, the comparison between photos of McCann and Wendel failed to match.

"It's practically impossible for the young Pole to be Maddie," Fehrlin told Blick. "You can save yourself the DNA test."

Wendel submits samples for DNA testing

McCann has already submitted DNA samples for three different forensic tests in the US as well as taking a 23andMe-style DNA test. The results can take weeks to come back.

"We are still waiting on the result of DNA testing that will show us exactly what Julia’s ethnic background is and what country she and her true family are from," Wendel's Personal Investigator Dr. Fia Johansson told The Sun. "These kinds of tests are very accurate."

Wendel and Johansson traveled to the US following alleged death threats aimed at Wendel after she came out saying she believes she's McCann. 

Aside from the facial recognition test, Polish police also said that they had ruled out the possibility that Wendel is McCann.

Despite whether or not she is actually McCann, Wendel does not believe that she is actually related to her family. Part of the reasoning she gave for believing she was McCann was that she claimed her parents refused to talk to her about her childhood. She also said that her parents claimed she had attended the same elementary school since she started going to school, but her teacher said that she had only joined a few years later.

Johansson also claimed to have evidence to back up the claim that Wendel is not genetically related to her family.

“We are still conducting an investigation but Julia is definitely not the biological daughter of her parents in Poland," she said after Wendel submitted samples for DNA testing.