Google Street View Appearing to Show Person Placing Body In Trunk Helps Solve Murder Case: Police
Today at 10:16 AM
Google Maps' Street View feature has famously captured moments as innocuous as people walking their dogs, building snowmen, or bringing in their groceries, but in one shocking instance, those little cars with cameras mounted on top may help solve a year-long murder case.
On December 18, the Spanish National Police confirmed that they made two arrests on November 12 after seeing a shocking image captured by the Google Maps Street View camera as it drove through the town of Tajueco in October 2023.
According to the BBC, it was the first time in 15 years that Google had driven its cars through the town in the northern province of Soria.
In these images, a man was seen loading a large white package into the trunk of a red car on an otherwise barren street. From some angles, the white bag appeared shaped like a body.
Officials reported seeing another sequence of images from the Street View cameras showing the blurred silhouette of an individual transporting a similar large white bundle in a wheelbarrow, per the BBC.
Of the images, the central government's representative in Soria, Miguel Latorre, told public broadcaster RTVE the individual seen "can presumably be" considered the culprit, as reported by CBS News.
Police said in their release that the images found online were not necessarily "decisive" in solving the case, per the BBC, but were just one in a series of clues used to find their suspected killers.
The year-long missing persons case became a murder investigation after police discovered dismembered human remains in a cemetery last week, per the BBC, that police have connected to an October 2023 missing persons report.
The remains were described as a "human torso in an advanced state of decomposition," which police believe "could correspond to the missing person," but have not yet been positively identified. Police shared video footage of officers digging in the cemetery to X.
The man was described as a 33-year-old Cuban national in El País newspaper, per the BBC.
The case began in October 2023, according to a press release translated by People, when a relative reported an unnamed man missing after they said they received "suspicious" messages from him.
According to the BBC, in these purported text messages, the missing man told the relative he'd met a woman, and would be leaving Spain, and getting rid of his phone. The relative was immediately skeptical, contacting authorities.
The Google Street View images of someone loading a large white package into a clearly visible red vehicle were taken in the same month as this missing persons report. This, along with other evidence, helped police put together their case.
In November 2024, "officers traveled to two towns in Soria where they arrested a woman, the missing person's partner, and a man, who had been the detainee's partner," police said in their translated release.
After their suspects were arrested, police said they conducted "raids and searches" of both suspects' homes and vehicles, "where they managed to find elements relevant to the investigation."
The two suspects are being held in custody as the investigation continues.
CBS News notes this isn't the first time Google Maps has helped police solve crimes, referring to an Italian mafia boss who'd been on the run for decades only to be captured and arrested after he was captured on camera.
Back in 2019, someone zoomed in on the Google Maps satellite image of a lake in their former Florida neighborhood and discovered a submerged car, leading to the recovery of a man's remains who'd been missing for 22 years.
