'My baby girl was ‘snatched’ from a supermarket – now a sick scammer is pretending to be her'

A heartbroken dad whose toddler vanished in a suspected kidnapping 45-years-ago says a woman is impersonating his daughter as part of a fundraising scam. Richard Lee, 76, says the shameless conwoman set up fundraising pages and banked hundreds of dollars by pretending to be missing Katrice Lee. Katrice vanished on November 28, 1981 on her second birthday while looking for her mum in a shopping centre in Germany, where Richard was stationed in the British Army. Richard, a former sergeant major who served in the army for 33 years, vowed to solve the mystery and says he will keep going until the day he dies. But now dad-of-two Richard, from Hartlepool, County Durham, says an American woman is claiming to be his lost daughter and set up a donation page in February. The woman, calling herself Heather McCord, claimed she needed money to travel to the UK to arrange a DNA test to prove her identity. She's managed to raise $225 (£166) on GoFundMe but Richard says the attempt has the hallmarks of a scam. Richard said: "When I was informed about it I was livid. I'm fuming about it. My goal is to get answers where Katrice is. Their goal is purely to get money. It was a friend of another admin page who told my other daughter Natasha about this woman. "She's in a circle of admin people who have missing children. She identified that this individual had set up a donation page. She was using our material, my interviews. She took chunks off YouTube , my interviews, and she put up a story line to say that basically she had to raise funds to get to the UK. "She claimed she was wanting to reach us to do a DNA test. She started pulling on the heart and playing those strings on February 27. It had gone out in America and about $225 had been donated. By all accounts it's not the first family she's done this to. In my mind she's a career scammer. "Going off what I've been told she has a number of donation pages on the go at the same time. What she said was that she'd been to the authorities and they wouldn't help her. She claimed she was trafficked as a two-year-old. Red flags immediately. She said she'd been to the authorities and that they wouldn't help her, she was cagey. But why wouldn't they help? "The only thing that she would clarify is that she would fly to the UK and give DNA. Anyone reading that would think we've got to give this family resolution. I look at the story and pick up red flags straight away. All she had to do is go to the American military police and they would've contacted the UK military police. They would've Faxed over the DNA results and we'd know." Richard added: "For a person to go on and pretend to be something like that, it really makes me angry. This woman is trying to cash in on our tragedy and it shouldn't be allowed. It's scandalous to pretend to be such a thing. To make money from it is unbelievable. "We've had this one scammer but we get trolls, too. But trolls are different. We've had them DNA tested and told face to face that they aren't Katrice, but they still continue to claim to be Katrice. "I was sat in a restaurant at the time on New Years eve, I got a friend request and it was a picture of Katrice with the message saying 'Hi I'm Katrice, can I be your friend'. The sad part is you get a lot of people who come to us and we direct them to the military police. They have their time in the limelight and won't give up." The family have since reported the incident to the UK Military Police - who are in talks with the US to trace the woman. Richard, who is still searching for answers over his daughters disappearance, added: "I won't stop until I get the resolution of knowing what's happened. Love doesn't die and that's what it's all about. My main aim is exactly that." Over the years, he and his family, have been subjected to trolls and harassment from a number of people falsely claiming to be Katrice. One woman was jailed in 2014 and another was given a suspended prison sentence in 2019. The GoFundMe reads: "It's been 44 years since the disappearance. All I want is to prove who I am and be reunited with my family…I want justice and there are many reasons for me to believe I am her. I also remember the day I was kidnapped and who did it. Any help would be very greatly appreciated. Thank you so much in advance."