The baffling case of an elderly woman who disappeared without a trace after her husband stepped outside was finally solved two years later thanks to Google Maps.
Marcel Taret was the sole carer for his 83-year-old wife, Paulette Landrieux, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease.
In a recent video, podcaster Mr Ballen explained that caring for Paulette was a full-time job for Marcel. “Paulette needed help remembering to eat or to take her medications on time,” he said.
“Sometimes she would just wander off without telling Marcel and he would have to go and corral her and bring her back home.”Â
On November 2, 2020, Marcel left Paulette alone for a few minutes to hang some laundry on his washing line. Tragically, it was the last time he saw her alive.
Before stepping out, Marcel had set his wife up in front of the TV with a nice lunch, expecting her to be engrossed in her favourite show when he returned. But to his shock, she was nowhere to be found.
With growing dread, Marcel searched every room in the house for his wife. “He went outside,” Mr Ballen said. “He searched the outside of the house but she wasn’t there. He even knocked on some neighbours’ doors but they hadn’t seen her.”
Frantically, he called the police and, less than an hour later, was relieved to see a search and rescue helicopter hovering over his home in Andenne, Belgium. Marcel was certain that – one way or another – he would soon discover what had happened to his wife.
It grew darker, but still, there was no sign of Paulette’s return.Â
“Over the next few days and weeks Paulette didn’t turn up,” Mr Ballen explained.
“Nobody had any idea where she was, and weeks turned into months and then months turned into two full years that nobody had seen Paulette.
“By that point Marcel had basically resigned himself to the fact that he very likely would die without ever figuring out what happened to his wife.”
But an extraordinary coincidence cracked the case – Google’s Streetview car had driven through the couple’s town on the very same day that she vanished.
One of Marcel’s neighbours looked at the Streetview images of the couple’s home a couple of years after Paulette’s disappearance.
In the snaps, Paulette is seen crossing the street while Marcel can be seen in the back garden. Investigators later discovered the truth about what had happened to her. Mr Ballen revealed: “Across the street was a steep hill that led down to a thick bramble bush.”
Her body was located inside the bramble bush. “When that huge search for her was going on, very likely she was just trapped down there,” he tragically said.
“She didn’t understand what was going on, she couldn’t necessarily yell up to communicate with anybody and so she stayed down there and died.”