Google Maps helped Spanish investigators solve a year-long murder mystery by capturing the moment someone stuffed a suspected body into a car.
Police in the northern region of Castile and León began their investigation in November 2023 when a person reported the disappearance of a male relative.
On November 12, police arrested a woman who was the partner of the missing man and another man who was his ex-spouse, police said in a statement Wednesday.
Investigators then searched the suspects’ homes and inspected their vehicles, but also came across an unexpected lead while looking for other clues.
These were “images in a location application” where they “detected a vehicle which could have been used during the crime”, the press release specifies.
Spanish media released images of a Google Maps Street View screenshot from October 2024 showing a person throwing an object covered in a white shroud into the trunk of a car in the village of Tajueco. It was the first time in 15 years that the car had visited the town of Tajueco, the BBC reported.
The images helped solve the case, although they were not “decisive,” police said.
Authorities said another photo sequence showed the blurred silhouette of a person carrying a large white package in a wheelbarrow, the BBC reported.
The representative of the central government in Soria, Miguel Latorre, told public broadcaster RTVE that this person “can probably be” considered the culprit.
Police said a badly decomposed human torso, belonging to the victim, was found this month in a cemetery in Soria province. The daily El Pais reported that it was a 33-year-old Cuban.
A judge ordered the suspects detained and the investigation remains open.
This is at least the second time Google’s technology has helped solve a cold case. In 2019, the remains of a man missing for 22 years were finally found thanks to someone who zoomed in on his old Florida neighborhood with Google satellite images and I noticed a car submerged in a lake.
