Google Street View Image Leads to Arrest in Spanish Murder Case

What’s New

Google Street View has helped Spanish police arrest two people allegedly involved in the disappearance and death of a man in the province of Soria.

Why It Matters

A report was filed in November of 2023 for a man who disappeared in Spain. According to the police, a relative was suspicious of the messages he received from the missing person. Images from a “location search application” helped the investigators “solve the crime,” the Spanish National Police said in a statement.

“The investigators had images that they detected during the investigation in which, in a location application, they detected a vehicle that could have been used in the course of the crime,” the police statement reads.

The image from Google Maps’ Street View seems to show a man in a navy blue shirt and jeans hunched over the trunk of a maroon-colored car. The man, whose face is not seen, is seemingly pushing a white body bag into the car.

Officers arrested a woman who was the missing male’s partner as well as another man who was the woman’s ex-partner on November 12, according to the police statement.

Newsweek reached out to Google for a comment on their images assisting the investigation.

What To Know

After investigators arrested the two suspects, police raided their homes and inspected their vehicles. This is when they also stumbled upon the Google Maps’ imagery.

The image showed the first time in 15 years that a car was in the town of Tajueco in Soria, according to the BBC.

The Google Maps’ Street View image circulated Spanish media in October. While the images were not “decisive,” police said they helped “solve the crime.”

Part of the human remains of the missing man were found buried in a cemetery in a town in the province of Soria. The torso was described to be “in an advanced state of decomposition.” The man’s body was removed from the cemetery on December 11 and transferred to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences.

El País newspaper identified the victim as a 33-year-old Cuban national.

While Google’s Street View does not provide real-time images, its content has…