Australian lead goes cold in Madeleine McCann hunt

Australian lead goes cold in Madeleine McCann hunt Sydney - An Australian woman alleged to know something about the 2007 disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann in Portugal said Sunday she had no connection to the case and hadn't been abroad since 2000.

"I'm shocked that anybody may have thought that I have some connection to this case," Melbourne's Judith Aron told The Age newspaper. "I can honestly say I have no connection to the little girl."

Aron spoke to the press after a friend said she might be the mystery woman who reportedly spoke to a British man outside a bar in Barcelona, Spain, three days after the toddler went missing from her family's rented holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3, 2007.

According to private detectives, the woman mistook the British man for someone else and asked him if he was in Barcelona to deliver a "new daughter."

Kate and Gerry McCann continue to search for their daughter despite the Portuguese police closing their investigation into the case a year ago.(dpa)