The update of Google Maps images, for the first time in 15 years, played a crucial role in solving a crime in Tajueco, a small town in the north of Spain, in the Castile and Leon region.
Updated images, published in October, showed suspicious scenes that helped police solve the case. In them, it is possible to see a man placing a volume wrapped in white cloth, in the shape of a human body, inside the trunk of a car. In an image below, a person appears apparently carrying the same volume in a wheelbarrow.
These images, along with other clues, were fundamental to the investigation. The Spanish National Police arrested the man who appears adjusting the volume in the car, as well as his ex-wife, both suspected of having killed a man who has been missing since November 2023.
The disappearance of the man, a 33-year-old Cuban who lived in Soria, was reported by his cousin, who was worried when he received suspicious messages from the victim’s phone. The cousin realized that the messages were being sent by other people, as he had not heard from his relative.
The police began the investigation and, based on new images from Google Maps, searched a nearby cemetery in Andaluz, where they found the torso of a body. Police believe that the body found is that of the missing victim, who was in a relationship with the wife of the arrested man. The couple was arrested in November and was detained after being heard by a judge.
These images, captured by Google cars that follow the routes to update Maps, may have been taken months before being published, which shows the importance of these updates, as they were a decisive element in the research.
