The mother of the Polish woman who claimed she was missing British girl Madeleine McCann is “just beside herself” after her daughter’s fantasy was demolished by recent DNA testing.
Her family, from the Polish city of Wroclaw, are reportedly distressed by the attention the case has brought them and a family friend has revealed this isn’t the first time Wendell has assumed another identity.
The friend, speaking to the Daily Mail, said Julia’s mother Dorota Wandelt-Cholewinski and stepfather Piotr Cholewinski have been hurt by the involvement of self-styled “psychic” Dr Fia Johnansson, who represented their daughter in the media.
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The friend said: “Julia is a very disturbed young woman. Her mother Dorota is just beside herself, she can’t believe how this has snowballed, Julia is very sick and Dorata just wants her to get the help she needs.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.“It was clear from the beginning that Julia was not Madeleine and Dorota is furious that this so-called doctor exploited the illness of a very young woman.
“Dorota is mortified that all this publicity has caused fresh grief for the McCann family.”
The Daily Mail also discovered Wendell had previously claimed to be another missing girl in her mid-teens and also contacted a Polish charity with other outlandish identity claims.
A spokesperson for the charity told the Mail: “Julia has messaged us twice to say she is a missing person, once to say she was German and once to say she was American.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.“Neither were correct and we have been helping Julia’s family as best we can because it’s quite clear she is not very well and is constantly claiming to be people she isn’t.”
Wendell herself says she is “struggling to understand” the results of her recent DNA test and has hit out at Johansson.
She went on Instagram to accuse Johansson of “trying to scare me”, asking if her offers to help were genuine, LBC News reported.
She also accused Johansson of withholding important information from the DNA tests, leaving her “struggling to understand” the results, which showed she could not be Maddie.
Wendell previously said she first suspected she was the missing British girl last year, after years of questioning her family history.
She did not send DNA to the British police, instead choosing a DNA test to probe her ancestry.
She has said she would wait for the results before going further with her claims, but when the results arrived, they did not show ancestry that matches with tragic Maddie.
“She is absolutely, 100 per cent from Poland,” Wendell’s advocate Johansson told Radar Online when the results arrived.
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Johansson replied to Wendell’s claims on Instagram, saying “Julia was provided all the information about her DNA results to check for herself”.
“Although Julia is disappointed about this revelation and the spotlight may fade away, the truth as presented in the results speaks to perhaps an unwelcome new reality,” Johansson wrote.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.“I am glad she is safe and sound with her family, [which] she perhaps does not want. Her doctor of several years had prescribed medication, which she was not taking consistently.”
Wendell’s former confidante also revealed the Polish woman does not have leukaemia, but instead suffers from Cushing’s Syndrome, a pituitary disorder.
“Julia – I wish you the best despite what you say. We had an eventful journey, but like all good things there is always an ending, sometimes happy and sometimes sad,” she wrote.
Despite speaking to media around the world on her behalf, including an appearance on the Dr Phil show, Johansson now says she did not believe Wendell’s story.
“I have always believed Madeleine is alive, but when I flew out to Poland, I knew Julia wasn’t Madeleine,” she told the Daily Mirror.
“I knew all of the disorders Julia had. She was immature and couldn’t recognise who she was. She needed to get closure.”
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The self-described “psychic” defended her actions, saying the story had brought attention to the McCann investigation.
“I believe in this now - I believe if Julia did not come out the way she did, there would not be the interest in Madeleine’s case,” she told the Mirror.
“At least Julia warned people not to give up on Maddy’s case. Next time, it could be Madeleine.”
The parents of Madeleine McCann issued a statement earlier this week after the DNA test proved that Wendell could not be their long-lost child.
A spokesman for Madeleine’s parents Kate and Gerry McCann said: “There isn’t anything to report at this time. If and when there is, it will come from the Metropolitan Police.”
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