When Google Street View took photos in Tajueco in October, the town of just 57 residents in northern Spain appeared quiet, its streets mostly free of people and traffic.
But among the images captured that day, one showed a man placing a large white bundle into the trunk of a maroon-colored car – evidence police say helped solve the disappearance and death of a man missing for more than a year.
Spanish police said they had been searching for the man, whom they have not named, after a relative reported him missing in November 2023. The relative said they had received messages from the missing man’s phone that did not seem to be written by him, police said in a statement.
On Nov. 12, officers traveled to two towns in the area where they arrested a woman – the partner of the missing man – as well as the woman’s former partner, on suspicion of illegal detention.
Following an investigation that included searches at the homes of the man and the woman, and images found on a location app, police said they found a human torso “in an advanced state of decomposition” buried in a cemetery that is believed to be the remains of the missing person. The body was recovered on Dec. 11, and the investigation continues.
Among the clues that helped police were images found “during the investigations in a location search application,” including “a vehicle that could have been used in the course of the crime,” police said in their statement, although they added that the images were not “decisive” to the investigation.
A photo of the car, and the man loading the white bundle, was still available on Google Street View on Thursday morning.
Google declined to comment on the case. The company’s policy stresses that Street View does not provide real-time images and the content is a few months to a few years old. Its previous photos of Tajueco were taken 15 years ago.
According to Spain’s EFE news agency, the remains of the man, who was of Cuban origin, were found in a cemetery in the nearby town of Andaluz. Spanish newspaper El Pais said that the body had been dismembered and that locals were shocked when they learned about what had happened.
Google Maps has played a role in solving other crimes in the past.
In 2022, a reported member of a Sicilian mafia group was discovered living in Spain after decades on the run, after images on Google Street View showed him standing outside a grocery store. And years earlier, twin brothers accused of mugging a teenage boy in the Netherlands were arrested after they were captured on a Google camera.
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Victoria Bisset
ur mom