A picture is worth a thousand words. A red car and a man bent over and putting a large white bag in the boot. It’s the image from Google Maps Street View application that helped National Police officers solve a murder in Soria, in north-central Spain, which they had started investigating more than a year ago.
A vehicle from the search engine giant equipped with numerous cameras on its roof photographed every corner of Tajueco in Soria (Castilla y León). It was a routine visit as part of its route to take images for Google street view until it arrived at Calle El Norte.
There, an old red car was parked like any other day and next to it, a man was putting a big bundle in the boot. It could be a normal everyday scene, but it was not, and it proved to be the key piece that solved the puzzle National Police had been trying to put together since November 2023.
Since that date, officers together with Guardia Civil had been looking for a 40-year-old Cuban man. The young man had come to Spain looking for his wife and been missing since November last year. Details were scarce and nobody knew his whereabouts.
After a long period of investigation, a strange coincidence set off alarm bells: the Google Street View image of a man putting a bulky white plastic bag in the boot of a car in Calle El Norte de Tajueco.
Police officers discovered who the car belonged to and tapped the suspect’s phone. They found out that he lived with the Cuban wife of the missing man. After months of listening to the couple’s conversations, both were arrested and charged in connection with the crime.
After ten months of investigation, the case has been solved. The remains of the young Cuban man were found dismembered in the cemetery of the municipality of Andaluz, just 12 minutes from the location where the vital image that solved the crime was taken.